


The Apocrypha

by clockheartedcrocodile



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Ficlet Collection, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-03-11 23:10:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 20,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13534512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockheartedcrocodile/pseuds/clockheartedcrocodile
Summary: A·poc·ry·phaəˈpäkrəfə/noun1. Biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of Scripture.2. A collection of Exorcist ficlets that I've written on Tumblr, now gathered together in one place, and carefully tagged for your convenience at the start of each chapter.





	1. Fight Club

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to @cutiesonthehorizon for letting me know that there was an interest in this collection. I've tried to organize things in the best way possible while still not leaving a morass of tags for people to wade through. All chapters can still be found on my Tumblr, conveniently under the #ficlet tag, or the #request fill tag.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This first chapter was not based on a prompt, but on the idea of comparing and contrasting Tomas' "Workout Strength" and Marcus' "Feral Cryptid Strength."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [self-defense practice, fluff]

“Can you teach me how to fight?” Tomas asks one morning. Marcus, who is brushing his teeth, is taken completely by surprise.

Marcus is not a good fighter, though he is a passionate one. He bares his teeth, grasps and clutches and clings like an animal. He’s a throat-biter and an ankle-ripper, a whirling dervish of anger and desperation. He fights because he has always needed to.

Tomas is, for lack of a better word, prim, but he’s built like a stevedore and could probably kill a man if he punched him in the throat. He shouldn’t need any instruction.

“You shouldn’t need any instruction,” Marcus says. He rinses and spits before he continues. “Just use what you’ve got, you’ll be fine. You’re muscular enough to get on without my help,” He gestures to his own oversized sweater, as if to say, _I can’t even fill this out properly_.

Tomas leans out from behind the shower curtain. “I am more than a match for one person, Marcus,” he says, “but against two? Or three? I haven’t been in a proper fight for a long time. What if we are called to perform an exorcism and their family comes after us, and you have to fight them off all by yourself?”

“That will never happen.”

“But if it did,” Tomas insists, “I want to be able to help you. You shouldn’t have to fight them off alone anymore. I’m tired of you taking all of the punches.”

Marcus chuckles humorlessly and leans against the sink. “I don’t know much about proper fighting, Tomas. I only know how to survive.”

“Then teach me that much, at least.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes, for the love of-” and Tomas ducks back behind the curtain just as shampoo starts dripping into his eyes. Marcus watches his silhouette smooth back the hair from its face. “Just, please?”

“Alright,” Marcus says, “since you were so polite about it and all.”

-

Later that morning, Marcus takes him out into the empty parking lot, where they stand facing each other a few feet apart. “You’re stronger than me,” Marcus begins, “but I’m bigger, and I’m faster. Come at me.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like-”

Before Marcus can finish Tomas has launched himself forward, closing the distance between them, and Marcus quickly sidesteps and slams his elbow into Tomas’ back as he passes. “As I said before,” he says, holding back a smile. “I’m faster than you. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Stop you from moving,” Tomas says between coughs, turning around to face him again.

“And before that?” Marcus asks, as they slowly begin to circle one another in the empty parking lot.

Tomas lunges forward and tries to go for Marcus’ jaw, but Marcus’ arm snaps up to block it, grips his wrist, and in one fluid movement Marcus turns his shoulder into him and uses his own momentum to flip him and slam him into the ground. Tomas gasps, more from the impact than the pain, and Marcus scrambles away from him, his boots screeching against the asphalt, already prepared for the other attackers. For once, there aren't any.

Marcus is made for scraps. He is used to dirty fighting that puts him up against five, six, seven other men, all bigger, all out for blood. But he isn’t at his best during one-on-one, and Tomas has more stamina. Tomas is the kind of man who likes to take a morning run because it makes him “feel fresh.” The only running Marcus has ever done has been running away from something. Already Tomas is getting to his feet, and Marcus realizes with dismay that he’s not even breathing heavily.

“I get it now, _mi león,”_ Tomas growls as they begin to circle each other once again. “You’re faster than me. I will have to tire you out.”

Marcus, who’s breathing is already growing ragged, bares his teeth in delight. _“Bien hecho, hermano.”_

The words make Tomas’ eyes gleam, but not with anger. He squares up, raises his fists and plants his feet firmly against the ground. “I think I’m learning already.”


	2. Morning Commute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: “Did Marcus and Tomas go back and forth to the mainland motel from the island? What did they talk about during their commute? Or at the motel?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [seasickness, religious themes]

“Why do you think God created man?” Marcus asks as Nachburn Island looms from the fog ahead of them.

The deck sways below Tomas’ feet, and he has to grip the railing tightly to stay standing. He gives Marcus a sidelong look with what he hopes is a scathing expression. “Where did that come from?”

A moment ago they had been talking about breakfast, and how it would be nice to have one once in a while. Marcus had explained an English breakfast to him in all its greasy detail, and had watched in barely-concealed amusement as he nearly vomited over the side. Not that there was much in his belly to lose anyway.

Marcus shrugs, an easy motion of his shoulders that seems at home with the rocking of the ship. “Making conversation.”

Tomas swallows back his bile with a grimace and tries to focus on Marcus’ hands, not the water. They rest on the railing, neatly folded, where Tomas’ are gripped white-knuckle tight. Their details are familiar to him; something stable as the world rocks and sways around him.

He considers the question. Rolls it over and over in his mind. It was a child’s question, a question that had been asked and re-asked at seminary. It required a certain clarity of thought that Tomas rarely enjoyed anymore.

“I asked Luis what he thought, once, when he was very young,” Tomas says slowly. “He said that God was made of love, and He didn’t think it was good for Him to keep all that love for Himself. So He created man, to love Him and be loved by Him, so that all that love is forever going around and around and around,” he gestures with his hand, before quickly slapping it back onto the railing, “and increasing and increasing. He was four when he told me that.”

“Beautiful thought,” says Marcus gruffly, his eyes already scanning the interior of the island. There are trees rising from the fog now, new cobwebs dripping carelessly down, as though flung there by mad spiders.

“I hope it’s true,” says Tomas, as the ferry pulls into the dock. “I’d like it to be.”


	3. Choir Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @pandoratheexplora on Tumblr writes: “Can you make one using any one of the dialogue prompt below? Doesn’t matter which character says it. Thank you!”
> 
> I picked “Where did you learn how to do that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [car repair written by someone who barely knows what a car is, Smitten!Marcus, fluff, singing]

It’s a forty-five minute walk to the nearest town and another forty-five minute walk back. It’s nearly nightfall by the time Marcus returns with a canister of gas and a backpack heavy with fresh supplies. He’s got dust streaked yellow and gray all up his legs, and his boots are smothered in it.

It’s dark enough that he hears Tomas before he sees the truck. When he’s close enough to see the moonlight winking off the window glass, he starts to make out the words.

_“You descended through those . . . heavenly doors . . . I was blessed to find a . . . love such as yours . . .”_

“Where did you learn how to do that?” Marcus asks, his boots crunching on the gravel as he draws closer.

Tomas is bent over the open hood of the truck, and at the sound of Marcus’ voice he straightens up and smiles at him. He’s got his sleeves rolled up, his hands and forearms slick with engine grease, and Marcus feels the sudden urge to pray.

“I used to be a choir boy, back in Mexico,” Tomas says. “It didn’t last long. My voice broke earlier than the other boys’ . . .” He ducks his head, almost shyly. Marcus will never understand why Tomas, of all people, should be shy. “I, ah, I thought you wouldn’t be back for a while. I don’t sing anymore.”

“Well, you’re not rubbish at it,” Marcus says. “You’ve got a knack.”

Tomas seems to glow with pleasure at Marcus’ words, and he starts wiping his hands off on one of the oil rags they keep in the back. “It should be good to go,” he says, nodding at the engine. “See if you can start it.”

Marcus drops his bag in the back and hops into the cab of the truck. Outside, Tomas closes the hood and turns off his flashlight, and Marcus can hear him singing again, much quieter, in the dark.

_“It was a miracle . . . a miracle . . . Heaven created a miracle . . . and sent you down . . . for me to love . . .”_


	4. Massage Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: "where is the erotic massage / fingering porn in this fandom"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [nsfw, scars, massage, fingering, fluff, domesticity, Bible verses]

“No one’s ever done this for me before,” Marcus mumbles into his pillow.

Tomas has him flat on his belly and is digging his hands into his shoulders, working out the knots. Marcus sighs softly beneath him, and Tomas redoubles his efforts. Marcus has desperately needed this for some time, and now that he’s finally let Tomas give it to him, Tomas intends to do the best job he can.

“My sister taught me how,” he says, his thumbs digging into the tight places in Marcus’ back. “She used to go for massages all the time, before Luis,” he smiles, shakes his head. “Then she didn’t have the time, so, she taught me how to do it for her instead.”

“Olivia is a blessing.”

“That she is, that she is,” Tomas nods, distracted. He’s tracing a snarl of scar tissue with the pad of his thumb, all the way up from the tenth rib to the seventh. Such scars remind him of those verses in Matthew . . . _consider ye the lilies of the field_  . . . The moral had been that if God adorned the lilies of the field so beautifully, would He not adorn His servants more beautifully still?

Tomas lets his hands roam freely, up Marcus’ back and down again, his fingers running along every dip and valley. In his opinion, God must love Marcus very much indeed to adorn him with so many scars. _I say unto you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these._ Chapter six, verse twenty-nine.

Tomas hands settle against Marcus’ lower back, and he leans forward to nip affectionately at one of Marcus’ shoulder blades. Marcus purrs appreciatively, and arches his back as though looking for more. “Didn’t do that with Olivia.”

“No,” Tomas murmurs, “I didn’t.”

He considers for a moment, and then, in a moment of weakness, he starts to wet two of his fingers in his mouth.

Marcus has turned his head to one side; he’s watching him with one wide blue eye. “What are you doing?” he says hoarsely, voice half muffled by the pillow.

Tomas slips his fingers out of his mouth, and Marcus groans. “Just being thorough,” he says, rubbing Marcus’ lower back with one hand while slipping his other underneath. The ease with which he parts Marcus’ legs is intoxicating; Marcus is as willing to split himself open for Tomas’ roving eye as he ever was.

Tomas gently brushes his fingers over Marcus’ tightly-furled entrance, and gets precisely the reaction he had hoped for: a full-bodied shudder that makes the muscles jump in Marcus’ back, and his hands twitch against the bedspread. Tomas does it again, then leans forward so he can lay more or less flat against Marcus’ back while he circles his entrance with his index finger.

“You know,” he says softly, mouthing at Marcus’ neck, “Solomon described his lover’s neck as a marble column. I never saw the beauty in that, till I met you.”

“Fuckin’ flatterer,” Marcus growls. _Flattery is the tool of the Devil,_ he does not say, for which Tomas is grateful.

Tomas slips his middle finger in, just a little bit, and Marcus squirms in pleasure under him. “God,” Tomas breathes, “you’re . . . can I go in deeper?"

Marcus’ hand starts searching behind him for something to hold on to, and finds Tomas’ other wrist, which he holds in an iron grip. That’s all the answer Tomas needs, and he pushes a little deeper, gently working him open with one hand.

“Mmm,” he hums, nipping at Marcus’ shoulder blades again. “Still feeling tense?”

“Fuck,” Marcus grunts.

“Don’t worry,” Tomas grins against Marcus’ back. “I’ll take care of that.”


	5. Last Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: “can you do tomas/marcus fic with the line “god help me, i think im in love him” doesnt really matter who says/thinks it? thanks!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [angst, religious guilt, confessional]

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Marcus murmurs into the dark. “It has been twenty-one days since my last confession.”

The man on the other side of the partition is a stranger to him. Marcus has not seen his face. He does not know the color of his eyes, or the curve of his mouth. The thought of confessing to Tomas makes a cold weight settle in Marcus’ belly, even as his blood runs shamefully hot. Confession is a sacred thing, and Marcus won’t make it obscene it by confessing to someone with eyes that can pierce his soul, and a clever mouth that Marcus longs to kiss.

So they’ve stopped here, in some backwoods Missouri town, for Marcus to give his filthy soul a good airing out.

“I confess,” he begins, before clearing his throat. It’s a loud sound in the silent booth, like chalk snapping. “I committed an act of violence against a man I did not know; he was impeding me in my work, and I struck him out of anger. I have lied and I have cheated, I have stolen, and I have let doubt creep into my heart. I have done all these things many times.”

Marcus looks down at his hands, in which he’s clasped his rosary. He turns it over and over in his hand, squeezing it just a little too tightly. Perhaps, if he squeezes it tightly enough, it will pierce him. Let a little of the ugliness drip out of him with the tainted blood.

“I confess,” he says again, and this time his voice is weaker. “I confess that I have held lustful thoughts in my heart, committing adultery against God. These thoughts have caused me to abuse myself, and I have done so frequently, with the full knowledge that in doing so I profane both God and the object of my lust.”

The priest speaks for the first time. His voice is clipped, but not unkind. He asks who the object of these desires is.

“My dearest friend in all the world,” says Marcus. “God help me, I think I’m in love with him.”

It slips out. Words made to be spoken softly, in the dark. They ought to be spoken in bed, whispered tremulously into a pillow, but instead they’re here. In a tight, dusty box where sin comes to die.

“Him?” says the priest, and Marcus knows then that he’ll do ten Hail Marys instead of four.

“Yes,” he says. He won’t take it back, not for anything. “That’s all, Father. I ask for absolution.”


	6. Expiration Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon wrote: “There is this one plot that I could never find in a fic so I wanted to ask with you to write it: a ficlet of Tomas having a terminal illness. I don’t know why I want it and I’m kinda embarrassed for wanting it. But I really want a ficlet with this prompt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [dark themes, angst, hurt / no comfort, terminal illness, brain tumor, implication of impending major character death, implied child death, Mouse is there]

“We can’t kill him,” Tomas says through gritted teeth.

They’re out in the hallway, two aching, bleeding exorcists, outside the door to the poor boy’s bedroom. The curtains have all been drawn and the windows boarded up, plunging the house into darkness. The air is full of dust, making Tomas’ eyes water.

Across from him, her eyes gleaming and her lips pursed in frustration, stands Mouse. There’s a vein twitching in her temple.

“He’s going to die anyway.” She’s on the cusp of losing patience.

“There is still a chance. I can reach him, somehow,” Tomas says desperately. “There’s always hope.”

“There’s something evil in him!” Mouse says fiercely. She backs Tomas into the wall until he’s flush against it. Though he’s bigger than her, she makes him feel small. “Something has nested in his brain, Tomas. It’s rotting him from the inside, and it’s going to kill him.”

“I wonder what _that_ feels like,” he spits, shoving her away. He’s breathing heavily, and he gives his head a little shake to clear it. For a moment, he had felt her breath on his face. “In the past week you’ve given up on four. _Four,_ Mouse. And this one is a _child.”_

She gives him a pitying look. “Marcus may have been willing to spend weeks at a time on a single soul, but I’m not.”

 _Your weeks are numbered,_ she doesn’t say, but Tomas knows she’s thinking it because he’s thinking it too.

Mouse sighs, runs her hands through her hair. Tomas can see the exhaustion writing itself into her face. She’ll look as old as Marcus soon.

“You’re the most powerful exorcist I’ve ever met, Tomas,” she says wearily, “but you came to me with an expiration date stamped on your forehead. Forgive me if I intend to get as much mileage out of you as I can.”

Tomas laughs, shrill and a little panicked. “Is that why you’ve been running me ragged?”

“You wasted a lot of time with Marcus.”

“I did not waste time.”

“Then what _did_ you do?” Mouse demands. “When you were not casting out unclean spirits? What did you _do?”_

 _We would sing along to James Ray,_ Tomas thinks desperately. _We would go to bars and whisper to each other behind our hands. Sometimes we would stay up past midnight in our hotel rooms, and he would draw in his Bible and I would read mine, and I didn’t want to sleep my life away anymore because I wanted to savor every minute, every passing hour._

He doesn’t say any of these things out loud. Instead he says “Nothing,” because that’s what Mouse needs to hear, always. You’re right, you’re right, you’re right, and Marcus was wrong.

She nods, but has the decency not to smile. “So, are we doing this or what?”

Tomas doesn’t answer her, and Mouse hesitates for a moment before putting her hand on his shoulder.

“He always does this,” she says gently. “He always runs away. If he had wanted to be the steward of the last few months of your life, he wouldn’t have given them to me.”

She squeezes his shoulder once, and then turns to open the door to the child’s bedroom.

The boy inside doesn’t survive.


	7. Thy Mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon 1 writes: “Hi…Could you write a ficlet that includes a injured Tomas and a worried Marcus? I don’t want to be picky but it would be nice if it was a shotgun/ stab wound. Thank you!”
> 
> Anon 2 writes: “can you do a fic with Marcus saying the line “please stay with me, Tomas. Don’t you fucking dare die on me.””

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [injury, hurt/comfort, ambiguous ending, angst, blink-and-you'll-miss-it implied racism]

This one is a little girl. Scabs on her knees, hair dyed a brilliant shade of blue. She is only eleven, and her father didn’t believe them when they told him she had the devil in her. He had whiskey on his breath and a mean look in his eye; an ugly motherfucker if ever there was one. He had spoken to Tomas first, until he heard his voice, and then he spoke only to Marcus.

Only eleven, and they had crept into the house in the dead of night, and stolen her away. The mother had been waiting, wide-eyed and scared, but her mouth had been firmly set. She had packed a little bag for her, with sandwiches, a change of clothes, and a plushie. (“Would you like to come with us?” “No. I can’t. He wouldn’t stand for it.”) Like that, they were gone.

They brought the girl to an abandoned barn on the far end of town. Marcus had held her while she kicked and struggled and spat blasphemies in their faces. It was all the usual vitriol, but made worse by her age, and apparent innocence. The children were always the most difficult ones.

They strapped her to a pillar in the center of the barn and began to exorcise her. It goes on for nearly two days before Marcus hears the tell-tale sound of tires grinding to a halt outside.

 _“May Thy mercy, Lord, descend upon us as great as our hope in Thee,”_ Marcus is whispering feverishly, his Bible held in his sweating palms. Before him, the girl convulses brutally, and bends almost double. Her eyes roll in her head.

 **No,** it groans, and for the first time in two days there is real fear in its voice, real horror. **No, no, you animal, you cockhound, you slapdash heap of worn-out flesh! You can’t do this, you don’t have the right!**

“He’s here,” Tomas says, looking away. He drops his Bible and scrambles for the door.

 _It should be me,_ Marcus thinks, _I should be fighting him off,_ but there’s no time for thoughts like that, not when they’re so close, just on the trembling cusp of success.

Tomas wrenches the door open and in storms the girl’s father like a dust storm, big and dirty and snarling like an animal.

Tomas is bigger than him, but not by much. He could take him in a fight, if the man hadn’t had a gun.

Marcus doesn’t hear the shot, because the demon lets out a shriek like a subway pulling into a station. Her body rises and falls twice, then lies still, and her chest begins to rise and fall instead. Slow, steady breaths. The sleep of the innocent.

Marcus doesn’t hear the shot, but he hears the cry that follows. Like a dog being kicked, it quickly chokes off into silence.

He whirls around and drops the moment he sees the gun, and a second bullet punches through the wall behind him. He gets his legs under him and launches himself forward, tackling the man around his legs. He hits the floor and Marcus is on him in a second, hands around his throat while he slams his heel down on the man’s hand. He drops the gun, and Marcus kicks it away.

It skitters across the hay-strewn floor into Tomas’ leg, and it’s then that Marcus sees him. He’s slumped against the wall, face white as a sheet, hands clasped tightly against his side. His teeth are gritted, and his breathing labored. Every breath makes another thick rivulet of blood drip between his fingers. A puddle is starting to spread.

Tomas’ blood, spilt on the floor of a _fucking barn._

Marcus looks down at the man he’s got pinned and feels his old friend Anger start to rise in him, that easy, easy anger that makes him want to bare his teeth and howl. He is unarmed, and for one mad moment, Marcus feels the urge to tear out his throat with his teeth.

 _No,_ a still small voice whispers. _He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in Me, and I in him._

Instead he takes the man’s head in both hands and cracks it against the ground. Violently. He’s out cold in an instant.

Marcus scrambles off him in his desperation to get his hands on Tomas, to feel the steady beating of his heart. “Tomas,” he stammers, _“Mírame,_ Tomas, _mírame._ I’m here, your partner’s here, I’ve got you, I . . . oh God.”

Tomas’ every breath sounds like it pains him. Marcus presses his hand against Tomas’ side, trying to add pressure, stop the bleeding, anything. All he succeeds in doing is slicking his own hand with Tomas’ blood. Something sacred, and he’s put his _hand_ in it.

“It’s alright, it’s, fuck, it’s going to be okay,” he stammers, hot tears pricking his eyes. He wills them away. _No, no, not now you fucking child._ “Please stay with me, Tomas. Don’t you fucking dare die on me.”

Tomas is trying to say something. It comes out weakly, and Marcus has to lean closer in order to hear him.

 _“Va a . . . estar bien, cariño,”_ he says hoarsely. _“Calma . . . Cálmese . . .”_

Marcus nods shakily, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand. He catches a glimpse of a pinprick of sun through the wall behind Tomas, and lets out a panicky laugh. “Look. I think, fuck, I think the bullet went right through you. That’s good news. Fuck, God, Tomas, look at me, you’re not looking at me.”

“I said,” Tomas whispers, a little quieter. “I said . . . it’s going to be . . .”

Tomas’ head drops onto his chest, and Marcus feels his veins flood with ice. He rips off his jacket to bind it around the wound, and finds it surprisingly easy to do so, now that every voice in his head has gone silent.

Tomas is breathing, but only just. Marcus ties his jacket tight, and begins to pray. _“The power of God protects us, the love of God enfolds us …”_


	8. Be Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon 1 writes: “can u write them making out?? pls??? im in desperate need”
> 
> Anon 2 writes: “if you still take requests, tomas lifting marcus, pinning him to a wall and kissing him senseless.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [making out, hair pulling, Tomas being Strong and Marcus being into it, touch starvation]

The door has barely closed behind them before Tomas has Marcus against the wall, pressing bruising kisses into the hollow beneath his jaw.

He ignores Marcus’ little huff of surprise, too desperate for contact, to have his skin-hunger satisfied after hours of sleepless exorcism. Their mouths had been only for prayer, and the last time he had touched Marcus’ skin, they were strapping a poor soul to a mattress. That was five days ago.

Tomas hooks his arms under Marcus’ thighs and lifts him easily, pulling another surprised gasp out of him as he presses Marcus’ back against the wall. He leans forward to lightly bite his way up Marcus’ neck, tasting the sweat there as Marcus threads his fingers into Tomas’ hair. It has grown much longer and curlier in their days on the road, and Tomas lets out a little whine of pleasure when Marcus tugs on it. He starts trying to lick into Marcus’ mouth as their kisses grow hungrier.

“What the _fuck,_ Tomas,” Marcus groans in awe, letting Tomas’ tongue slip into his mouth when he does.

Tomas mumbles for him to shut up. For once, _for once,_ he doesn’t want to hear that voice of his as he presses his lips against Marcus’ clever mouth. He just wants to enjoy this little bit of control, this knowledge that he can lift Marcus and press him into a wall if he likes, and maybe if Tomas gets just that _little bit_ stronger, he can carry them both out of this nightmare life for good.

He knows it’s a fantasy, that this forever-roadtrip towards the gates of Hell is never going to end, but it almost doesn’t matter anymore because he’s got Marcus pinned, he’s here and he’s not escaping, he’s not running away, and he’s not even _trying_ to.

 _For once in your life, my dearest friend,_ Tomas thinks desperately,  _be quiet and let me satisfy myself with you._

Marcus gives his hair another gentle tug and Tomas whimpers. “You like that,” Marcus mutters, with the same kind of curious, probing intensity that he applies to all new discoveries, and Tomas is nearly undone by it.

His next kisses are gentler, more caring. Marcus’ lips are already swollen, and they’re soft against Tomas’ needy mouth. His arms are looped around Tomas’ neck to hold him close.

 _“Te amo,”_ Tomas murmurs into Marcus’ mouth, unwilling to pull away, or to give this up. His arms aren’t aching; they never do when he’s holding Marcus.

 _“Te amo,”_ Marcus murmurs back, and Tomas’ hunger is finally sated.


	9. Easy Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: “Sleepy tomarcus, trading sleepy kisses, for the lil ficlet thingy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [domestic fluff, sleepiness]

On those rare occasions when they have the luxury of an easy night, Tomas likes to read.

He sits up in bed in only his boxers and undershirt, his hair still wet from the shower and his glasses slipping halfway down his nose. If it’s a magazine, or a scientific journal, he’ll now and then go “Huh,” out loud, and when Marcus asks “What?” as he inevitably does, Tomas jumps at the chance to tell him something fascinating about stem cells, or the history of cocoa harvesting. Marcus usually sits next to him when he does this, trying to flip through channels on the crackly 80’s TV in the corner, unable to focus on anything but the smell of the cheap motel soap Tomas uses, and how badly he wants to be kissed.

“Anything interesting?” he asks tonight. The TV switches off with a staticky _bzrp._

“Yes, actually,” says Tomas. He leans a little closer and rests his head against Marcus’ bare shoulder. He holds out the magazine for him to see. “A little girl in Cornwall pulled a sword out of the lake where King Arthur left Excalibur.”

“My God.”

“Mmm.”

“She’s the Queen of England, now.”

“Long live Queen Matilda.”

“Her name is _Matilda_ now, too?” Marcus laughs. “This gets better and better.”

Tomas smiles, and folds up the magazine before leaving it on the bedside table. He nuzzles back against Marcus, and seems to purr with pleasure when Marcus puts his arm around his shoulders.

 _Just like this,_ Marcus thinks. _Just like this, forever._

“It’s not all bad, is it,” says Tomas, stifling a yawn.

Marcus knows exactly what he means.

“No,” he says gently. “It’s not all bad.”  _Not when girls are pulling swords out of lakes, and priests are dreaming of exorcists, and God speaks with the voice of a storm over the sea._

Tomas kisses his neck, then shifts a little so he can reach his mouth. They exchange a few lazy kisses, growing slowly more and more open-mouthed, until Marcus has to reach up and hold Tomas’ face still so he can kiss him properly.

They linger like that for a moment, enjoying the sensation of being alone together. Then Tomas reaches across him, turns off the bedside lamp, and they nestle together in the dark. Marcus wraps his arms tightly around Tomas and pulls him in, tucks Tomas’ head under his chin. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs, not because they’re in danger, but because for one easy night, they’re not.

Tomas doesn’t say anything, but leaves a little kiss on Marcus’ collarbone, and when they fall asleep they dream of kings coming home.


	10. Another Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: “while i love tomas “cant hold his alcohol” ortega, what if he could hold his liquor like a fuckin champ. doin shots with marcus or mouse and the other is looking at him “what the fuck?? whta the fuck????? how??? are you?? only mildly buzzed??? im fuckin sloshed and youre here being sober??? tf???” you can treat this as a prompt, or just gimme ur opinion. im just throwing my thought out here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [alcohol, drunkenness, pining, fluff, Tomas has a tolerance, Marcus is secretly into it]

It’s a good bar, all things considered. Scuffed wooden floor, drunk clientele, bare lightbulbs. The man at the piano is relentlessly butchering “Up Jumped the Devil” with the kind of aplomb usually reserved for ragtime jazz singers. All in all, it’s precisely the kind of place Marcus wouldn’t mind making a bad decision in.

He raises his beer in an unsteady hand. “To another successful exorcism,” Marcus says loudly. Nobody hears over the raspy croon of the piano man.

“To standing in the doorway and pushing back the night,” Tomas says in return. _Clink._

Marcus takes a long swig from his bottle and sighs in satisfaction before giving Tomas a suspicious look.

Tomas, for his part, seems unconcerned. He drains the entire bottle, drinks it down in one go, and when he sets the bottle back down his hands aren’t even shaking.

Marcus licks his lips. “My God.”

“I’m telling you,” Tomas insists, not for the first time. “I can’t feel it.”

“You can’t feel it,” Marcus says incredulously, slapping both hands on the table rather more loudly than he meant to. “You can’t _feel_ it?”

“I feel kind of . . .” Tomas gestures vaguely towards his stomach, “. . . but I’m not drunk.”

“That was your _fourth.”_

Tomas shrugs.

“Fuck this,” Marcus says. “I’m out. I can’t keep matching you.”

He gets to his feet, hands still braced against the table, and stumbles almost immediately. Tomas’ hand jumps to his wrist, and Marcus tries not to read anything into it. “You alright?” he asks him, like he actually wants to know.

“I’m fine,” Marcus says. “Just . . . dizzy, that’s all.”

He sits back down again, somewhat abruptly, and tries to gather his thoughts. “You know,” he says, “it won’t be easy for us to get kicked out of bars all across America if you’re going to insist on having a tolerance.”

“We’ll have to think of some other way to cause trouble, brother.”

“Where did you even get a tolerance?”

“Communion wine.”

Marcus lets out a big, barking laugh, and people turn to look at him but he couldn’t care less. God, but Tomas makes him laugh. Maybe it’s the liquor, or the rowdy, good-time vibe of the evening, but everything he says in that sweet, silly voice of his is the best thing Marcus has ever heard.

“We could get in a fight,” Marcus laughs. “That’d get us thrown out for sure.”

“We’re not getting into a fight.”

“C’mon, why not? I thought you were down for a good scrap.”

“I’m down for finishing a ‘good scrap,’ Marcus, not starting one,” Tomas says drily. “Besides,” he leans forward, lowers his voice so no one else will hear. _“I have gotten you drunk.”_

“Take me home then,” says Marcus.

It slips out too quickly for him to stop it.

For a moment, Tomas stares at him, something indefinable in his expression. Marcus curses the liquor for loosening his tongue.

“I’d love to,” Tomas says quietly. Then he smiles, and quirks his eyebrows in a way that sets Marcus giggling again. “I mean, home is a room at the Canary All-Nite this week. But I’ll do the driving.”


	11. Cigarette Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: “if ur still taking requests: marcus is smoking and tomas wants to try smoking so marcus offers his cigarette and later thinks about the cigarette hes smoking is one that has also touched tomas’ mouth. please and thank you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [smoking, angst, guilt, self-hatred, pining]

Marcus Keane could not be trusted with beautiful things.

He knew this was true, as true as the color of his eyes and the capital of Illinois. He was full of a great and terrible loneliness that made him grasp and and clutch at whatever scraps of affection were thrown at him, and hold them close until they died. He was as base and corrupt as any mortal man, and ugly right down to the bottom of his rough-hewn soul. That was how it was.

Demons loved to spit these truths in his face. They dug their teeth into the tenderest places in his heart and bit down. **You dirty everything you touch,** they would say to him. **You deviant. You lonely old sinner. What kind of man are you? Is there nothing you won’t profane with your love?**

Yet despite all this, God, in all His infinite whimsy, had somehow seen fit to give Marcus the gift of the most beautiful man he’d ever known.

Beautiful was the only word for him. Beautiful both inside and out, a righteous man who, far from dirtying everything he touched, seemed to sanctify it. And Marcus wanted to fuck him.

Once, when they had been sitting in the back of the truck and picnicking on the side of the road in Arizona, Tomas had asked for a taste of Marcus’ cigarette.

Marcus watched Tomas’ mouth close on it, those lips that had left him sleepless, yearning into the late hours of the night.

Tomas breathed out a little wisp of smoke, coughed, and looked down at the cigarette in surprise. “It’s sweet,” he said curiously, rolling it around in his fingers. “Like honey and ash.”

“Clove cigarettes,” Marcus had said. “Only thing I smoke. People say it tastes like Christmas.”

Tomas took another, deeper drag. Marcus watched the movement of his throat, feeling as shamed and impotent as a voyeur.

When Tomas breathed out another plume of smoke, Marcus wanted to kiss it from his mouth. _Smoke is filthy,_ he thought to himself. _Come here, I’ll breathe it for you. My lungs are already black._

Tomas passed the cigarette back to him, and Marcus accepted it.

God, but it tasted sweet.

 _This is safe for him,_ Marcus thought, his eyes closed, breathing smoke into his lungs. _This is almost chaste. This is the closest our mouths will ever be._

He hated himself for it, even while he savored the lingering taste of Tomas’ lips on the cigarette. Even this, _even this,_ he makes obscene.

He remembered the concern on Tomas’ face when he’d seen Marcus’ expression. Damn him for being concerned about Marcus of all people when there were children fighting the Devil off one-handed. Damn him for caring. Damn him for making Marcus look at himself in the mirror and think,  _this is a man who somebody cares about_.

That night, like many nights before it, Marcus had knelt on the cold linoleum floor of a motel bathroom and clasped his hands together in contrition. The floor was painful on his old knees, but it was a good pain. The kind that reminded you of what you’d done, and scrubbed your soul till it was red and raw.

“A gift You gave me for love,” Marcus murmured, “and I want to fuck him. _Father, forgive me. I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest my sins sincerely because they displease Thee, my God, Who art so deserving of all my love . . .”_


	12. Seven Kinds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Poem for Marcus Keane, in Seven Stanzas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [irredeemably pretentious poetry, free verse]

I  
What about that otherworldly beauty,  
as slim and wild as something  
from the darkest places of the forest. The spindly birches  
that stretch their ghostly limbs to heaven,  
their skin like alabaster paper when it peels.  
He is not quite right, like something glimpsed  
just through a broken mirror. The angles  
are all wrong. A non-Euclidean thing.  
A kind of fey with eyes of melting ice,  
whose allure cannot be trammelled in a sonnet.

  
II  
What about that feral beauty,  
the hotblooded animal that longs to drink its fill  
of blood-and-thunder romance. A sculpture chipped away  
from the cold exterior of some rocky, rough-hewn shore  
from whence his father came. There’s that primal  
look to him, the one that makes him bloody his knuckles  
and bare his teeth when he fucks.  
The one that kills and doesn’t mind the scars.  
The one that would gladly go to sea for glory,  
or thrill at the sound of a siren.

  
III  
What about that tender beauty,  
when he wakes in the early morning dawn  
and stretches languidly, the tension drawing tighter,  
until the pinnacle, and then, the blissful release  
and the proud exhale. The morning birds are singing  
as the sun drips down the frosted panes of glass.  
Eyes still heavy with sleep, and yet there’s nowhere  
to go, and he might sleep a little longer  
in the soft embrace of a warm and comfortable bed  
that has long since learned his shape and weight and scent.

  
IV  
What about that frisky beauty,  
like cigarettes at three a.m., like bars  
with peanut shells on the floor. A laugh like sunlight  
filtered through a glass of the good whiskey.  
Happy and half-drunk, he can’t help but move his hips  
to the vintage jazz on the jukebox. That’s when he smiles  
at strange men in stranger bars, and sways  
his hips a little more invitingly.  
Come on, handsome, just you try it.  
I’ll bloody my teeth in your skin if you get too close.

  
V  
What about that loving beauty,  
when a child holds his hand, they don’t notice  
the callouses and scars. “You’re pure, and clean.  
I love you, and you won’t be hurt again.”  
He would’ve liked to have a child himself,  
but as it stands, he can’t, so they’re all his  
in one way or another. If in this way he can  
reflect the love of God the Father, whom he adores,  
then so much the better. He can be a father.  
He loves them all with everything he has.

  
VI  
What about that broken beauty,  
the exquisite, orgasmic agony of which  
the Catholics are so fond. The martyr,  
bruises wreathing his neck like a collar.  
Scars all up and down his arms, and blood  
wasted, spilt uncherished in bathrooms all across  
the country. There’s something so obscene  
about holy suffering. It’s the closest men can come  
to seeing God, or so the Devil has it,  
and if you can’t trust the Devil, who can you trust?

  
VII  
What about that seventh beauty,  
that secret seventh beauty, private to the soul,  
that no one gets to see. The one where he’s aching  
for a tender touch, and dripping, breathing hard.  
His calloused hands too rough, and yet too gentle  
when holding his own beating heart, for lack  
of someone else to hold it. A phantom lover  
to trace his veins down to the point of pleasure,  
the center of his lust. The seventh beauty,  
and after blissful climax, sleep can claim him.


	13. Bite Marks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: “Do you remember that time when Tomas was bitten and the bite got infected but then it just got better- yes, there was that incident when he tried to buy antibiotics…but anyway it simply got better like: end of story it’s healed now back to the exorcism. So I was thinking that maybe you could write a ficlet where Tomas gets bitten and said bite doesn’t heal so easily. Please?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [injury, hurt/comfort, angst, pining]

The wound was nearly a week old now, and still looked as raw and painful as it had when Tomas had first got it. Infected, probably, and ugly in its infection. The demon had caught Tomas’ forearm in its teeth and bit down, and when Tomas tore himself free, the demon had laughed. **Ready to spill blood for your Lord, Father? I thought sacrifices were supposed to be unblemished.**

The bite was deep and surrounded by blotchy bruising in every color of the rainbow, like a parody of a sleeve tattoo. It was healing, but slowly. Marcus and Tomas had long since moved onto another exorcism, one they had to flee in a hurry when the cops showed up. There had been no time to hold the poor girl, to tell her that it was all over now, that the demon would never come back to trouble her. It was a hit-and-run exorcism. A wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of affair.

Tomas hated those, but Marcus hated them more. He could see it in his face, and the way he gripped the steering wheel tighter as he drove.

They are not driving now.

They are huddled together in the cab of their truck, the bleak mid-evening damp of southern New Hampshire leaving frosty condensation on their windows. No motel room tonight, not even a shitty one. Bennett’s last cash drop had been three weeks ago, and it was spent. They would sleep with the seats reclined and the raindrops rattling on the roof of their truck tonight, and the night after, and the night after that.

Tomas never complained, not a word. He was going to be an exorcist if it fucking killed him, and he wasn’t going to give Marcus another reason to think any less of him. Already he’d been bitten, and badly at that. The way Marcus examined the wound- with a kind of frustrated intensity- told Tomas everything he needed to know. He had made a mistake. Again. One more time and Marcus would certainly put the final nail in the coffin. _You’re going back to Chicago._

The thought gave Tomas a terrible ache in his chest. It nearly rivaled the pain in his arm.

Marcus is changing his dressings for him, as he’s done every morning and night for the past week. Tomas holds his arm out, tries not to let shame distract him as Marcus dabs at it with a cloth wetted in the rain outside. He wants to enjoy this little bit of affection, this little scrap of closeness that Marcus has granted him, but it’s difficult when his open wounds are exposed to the night air. It’s an ugly one. The first really ugly injury that Tomas has earned. He can tell by the look in Marcus’ eyes that it’s going to scar.

He doesn’t say any of this to Marcus. He doesn’t dare. Marcus has been bitten and clawed and chewed, burned with acid and burned with hot irons. He’s been cut, bruised, and broken; he’s a man more scar than skin. Marcus has been at this for forty-odd years; Tomas, less than forty days. One bite is nothing compared to Marcus. Tomas doesn’t even want to dignify the bite with his attention, but Marcus refuses to let him forget to change the dressing, and Tomas is too desperate to be touched to say no.

He’s pathetic. He knows he is, and that knowledge is worse than any flesh wound.

“There you go,” Marcus murmurs, and Tomas feels his heart sink as he looks down at his freshly-bandaged arm. “All done.” He runs his thumb over the bandage one last time, and Tomas tries not to shudder.

Then Marcus frowns. His hand lingers just a little too long on the bandage, then slides down, down, down to the back of Tomas’ hand.

Tomas realizes he’s stopped breathing. He forces himself to let out a shaky exhale.

“Your hands are shaking,” says Marcus.

“I’m sorry,” says Tomas, in a very small voice.

“Don’t be. It’s normal after a trauma. Or an exorcism, in our case. Look,” and he holds out his own for Tomas’ inspection. It’s shaking just as badly, even a little worse.

Tomas tries to smile. “I thought you’d be past all that.”

“Never,” says Marcus. He clenches his fist, and unclenches. “The adrenaline rush of a fight-or-flight lingers even after the danger has past. No choice but to let your body ride it out.”

Tomas watches Marcus’ hand move in the air. He wants to take it, to press it between his own until it stops shaking. He wants to bring it to his mouth and kiss every knuckle.

Marcus’ hand hangs in the air for a fraction of a second too long, and then he drops it. He pats Tomas brusquely on the knee and turns back to face the windshield.

“A lot of things are normal after a trauma,” Marcus says quietly.

Tomas stares straight ahead at the rain-lashed windshield, and wishes he’d taken Marcus’ hand.

 


	14. Fever Haze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @twobrokenwyngs on Tumblr wrote: “Marcus is sick and stubborn about it because he’s not used to ever having someone to take care of him. :P lmao just a good ol’ fashioned sick fic”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [illness, vomit, head injury, hurt/comfort]

After narrowly evading death at the hands of a possessed soul in Memphis, Marcus almost dies in a shitty motel bathroom.

It happens like this: one minute he had been scrubbing flecks of vomit off his skin, and the next, he’s coughing himself back to consciousness on the shower floor, his nostrils full of water and something warm dripping down the back of his neck.

 _I fainted in the shower,_ he thinks dizzily, as he hauls himself to his feet. _Like a fucking geriatric._

The week-old stitches in his arm feel tight and painful in his puckered skin; he’ll have to take them out soon. His body no longer feels like his own, and hasn’t for a long time. Now it’s a composite of aches and pains and little agonies, a knot of scar tissue masquerading as a human being.

And now, on top of all that, a fever.

He has the good sense to turn off the water and get out, just as Tomas starts banging on the door. “Marcus?” he says. He sounds worried, though Marcus can’t imagine why. “I heard a crash.”

“It’s nothing,” he says, gripping the sink tightly as the world sways around him. “I fainted, that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

Tomas sounds a little panicked now, and he opens the door just as a wave of nausea threatens to turn Marcus’ stomach inside out. He almost tumbles to his knees next to the toilet- a familiar posture, in a familiar place- and vomits what’s left of his dinner. Not that there was much in his belly to begin with.

“Oh,” Tomas says. _“Oh.”_

Marcus reeks of fever. He can taste it on his tongue, and he’ll make the sheets rank with it if he manages to get any sleep tonight. Marcus wipes his mouth with one sweaty hand. “I’m fine,” he mumbles, not looking at Tomas. “It’s just a fever. It’ll pass.”

“You are _not_ fine,” Tomas says indignantly, and then his hand is against Marcus’ steaming skin, feeling his forehead. Marcus feels a weak tremor pass through him like ripples in a pond. “You need to lie down. I’ll tell Bennett we’re not going anywhere for a few days.”

Marcus looks at him with red-rimmed eyes, and scowls in confusion.

“It’s just a fever,” he repeats slowly. “It’ll pass.”

“You need to take care of yourself.”

“But it’ll _pass,”_ Marcus says again, because Tomas doesn’t seem to be getting it.

“This is blood,” Tomas says shakily, touching the back of Marcus’ head with his fingers. Marcus winces, but doesn’t pull away. “You cracked your head on the floor, Marcus, it’s a miracle you aren’t _dead.”_

“I'm not buggering off to Eternity from a _fall in the shower,”_ says Marcus gruffly.

“Marcus,” Tomas says firmly, placing his hands on Marcus’ bare shoulders. “This is not up for discussion. You’re not well. Let me take care of you, at least. I…” he hesitates. “…I need you at 100%.”

Marcus nods listlessly. That, at least, he understands.

“Alright,” he says. “Alright.”

He lets Tomas help him up onto his feet, and the world starts to spin again. “Just one night,” he says firmly, to the fever as much as to Tomas. “Just one.”

“As many as you need,” Tomas says, and Marcus doesn’t have the strength to contradict him.

He spends the night in a kind of delirious haze, never sure if he’s waking or sleeping. Now and then he’ll drag himself to the edge of the bed to vomit into the bowl Tomas has left on the floor, but there’s nothing left in him, and he ends up convulse drily as the muscles in his core knot and heave, trying to void something which isn’t there.

The third time this happens, Marcus can dimly feel Tomas’ hand gently rubbing between his shoulder blades. Not knowing if he’s waking or dreaming, he doesn’t dare try to speak to him.

 _Please_ , he thinks, his vision swimming as he stares at the motel wall. _Don’t stop touching me. I’m filthy, and you’ll be infected if you touch me, but I need you. Please._

He can feel the mattress dip under him, and then Tomas is at his back, heavy and solid and hot as a furnace. Marcus wonders if he had spoken aloud in his delirium, but he can’t bring himself to care just now, because Tomas’ arm slips around his waist and if it’s a dream it’s the best dream he’s had in a while.

Tomas’ nose brushes against the back of his neck, and he presses a kiss to the sweat-slick skin there. “Go to sleep,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you. Go to sleep.”

And as though he had been waiting for those very words, Marcus does.


	15. New Year's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @boundinshallows writes “I would love to see a New Year’s Eve kiss. First kiss or established is up to you. Either could be sweet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [fluff]

Tomas is jolted out of a deeply engrossing article on seahorses by the sound of Marcus banging on the bathroom door. “Tomas! It’s almost 2018!”

“Did you know,” says Tomas, who has had a very long year, “that the crown of a seahorse, called the _coral net,_ is unique to every seahorse in size, shape, and design?”

“Amazing,” says Marcus. “Get out here and come look outside, everyone’s out!”

“Who?”

_“Everyone.”_

Tomas sighs, flushes, and stands up. He leaves his _National Geographic_ on the edge of the sink and spends a good thirty seconds washing his hands as Marcus taps his foot impatiently outside.

“Well,” he says as he opens the door, but before he can finish Marcus has his arm around his shoulders and is steering him firmly towards the window.

“Look at that,” he says, at the streets below. Sure enough, everyone is out, the nightlife well and truly alive on this final day of year. The neighborhood they had dropped their bags in was not a safe one, but it was a beautiful one, and the blazing neon from innumerable different storefronts painted the night like a Jackson Pollock. The warring thump-thump-thumps of a dozen different nightclubs gave a quiet, ominous ambience to the chilly December air.

Tomas could see dark clumps of people moving like laughing shadows through the streets below, in and out of the street lights, going from party to party or pub to pub and laughing all the way. Sometimes one would recognize another, and they would fall into each other’s arms with ecstatic cries until their parties blended and they proceeded, as one, down the road.

“C’mon,” Marcus says eagerly, squeezing Tomas’ shoulder. “Let’s go out. Get into trouble.”

“We’ve just got _out_ of trouble.”

“Well then, we know we can handle it. Come on,” he insists, adopting a playfully pleading tone that Tomas has never yet been able to resist. “It’s New Year’s.”

“I will never under stand your love of New Year’s,” Tomas says, turning away from the window to go find his boots. Because of course they’re going out, of course they’re going to get into trouble, because Tomas is weak, and he’s been coming to the slow realization that he would do just about anything to make Marcus smile. “There’s no reason to think that tomorrow will be any better than today, just because it’s a different year.”

“Because,” Marcus says, his eyes sparkling. “It’s a _new year,_ Tomas, it means we bloody well survived the _first_ one. You don’t celebrate getting to another Christmas, or another Halloween, but on New Year’s that’s _all_ you’re celebrating. Just fucking getting there.”

He looks out the window again. Tomas watches the neon lights bathe his skin in red and blue and green, and something clenches in his heart.

“Everyone’s out and about,” Marcus says with a smile. “Everyone’s doing something, and they’re all happy just to be alive. Everyone’s your friend, except when they’re not, and then you can _fight_ them,” He laughs, shakes his head. “Come on, Tomas. The last New Year’s I had with someone was with _Bennett,_ can you imagine?”

“Alright,” Tomas says, tugging on his boots. He stands up again, rolls his shoulders back to limber up his arms. “Alright, Marcus, let’s go. Let’s do this.”

“Yes!” Marcus laughs delightedly. Tomas tries to say something else but before he can Marcus has his hand on his neck and has kissed him on the cheek, almost fiercely, like he wanted to do it quickly before he lost his nerve. “Let’s go!” He says breathlessly, when he pulls away. “Let’s go, right now. I’ll get my coat.”

“Yeah,” says Tomas, dazed. “You get your coat.”

“Yes!” Marcus says again, and in one fluid motion he sweeps his leathers off his bed and tugs them on, as though it’s second-nature to him. “Are you with me?” he asks over his shoulder, his hand already on the doorknob.

“Yes,” Tomas breathes. _Oh my God, yes._ “Always. Let’s go get into trouble.”


	16. Mi Cielito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is 2k, significantly longer than all the other ficlets, but I wrote it intending for it to be shorter and I'm not sure that it quite warrants its own post. Based very, very loosely on tags from @pandorathexplora and @crossroadscastiel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [nsfw, oral sex, fluff, lingerie, intoxication, could be considered crack!fic depending on what kind of person you are]

Tomas stumbles out of the bar and immediately tugs his jacket over his head to shield himself from the rain. He waves for Marcus to join him and they huddle together on the sidewalk, leaning on each other for balance as they try to control their laughter.

“I can’t remember where the fucking motel is,” Marcus giggles against Tomas’ shoulder.

“It’s this way, it’s so close,” says Tomas with a broad smile, gesturing vaguely down the road to the left. He throws an arm around Marcus’ shoulders and kisses him fiercely on the temple. “Come on,” he grins as he grabs Marcus’ hand starts tugging him down the sidewalk. Traffic lights blaze above the roads, reflecting up at them from the puddles in splashes of red and green. A car swerves past them in the dark and sprays their boots with rainwater, and Tomas, usually so fastidious, thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world tonight.

Tomas keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the sidewalk ahead of them, partly so he won’t walk into a lamp post and partly so he won’t have to look at Marcus, and the drunk flush in his cheeks, and his eyes that crinkle at the corners when he smiles. Marcus’ helpless laughter isn’t helping his resolve. “We should’ve stayed!” he’s saying, raising his voice to be heard over the rain.

Tomas giggles, alcohol making his head spin. God, he’s frisky tonight, and Marcus is, if possible, even friskier. Tomas slows down when they get within view of the pink neon _Vacancy_ sign glowing gloomily through the rain, and pulls Marcus close enough to whisper in his ear, _“I’m not going to suck your cock in a men’s toilet.”_

Marcus lets out a great bark of laughter and leans his forehead on Tomas’ shoulder, trembling with mirth. “Seedy motels are more your scene, eh?”

“Only the best for _mi cielito,”_ says Tomas, and Marcus’ answering laugh is muffled against Tomas’ jacket as they stumble across the motel parking lot to their room, clinging to each other and laughing like a couple of old friends back from a bachelor party. They huddle under the lip of the roof while Tomas fumbles with the key to their room, and when they finally get the door open they hurriedly shuffle inside and slam it shut behind them.

Tomas is on Marcus in a second, arms around his neck, and kissing him with all the graceless enthusiasm of a teenager. He can feel the low thrum of Marcus’ laughter give way to amorous sighs as Tomas backs him against the wall and begins to nibble at his jaw.

“At least let me… ahh…” Marcus groans, his hands coming up to rub Tomas’ back through his soaked jacket. “At least let me towel off first.”

“I can’t wait that long,” Tomas grins against Marcus’ neck, the alcohol in his blood making him silly and stupid and _happy,_ so happy. His jacket is clinging to him, making it difficult to move his arms, and Tomas sheds it in frustration and throws it aside, letting it make a damp puddle on the floor near their bags.

 _“Christ,”_ Marcus moans, his hands shaking as he reaches out to run his hands down Tomas’ chest, and the soaking wet shirt that clings to every line of his body. Tomas’ breath catches in his throat as he lets Marcus explore him, watching him lick his lips almost unconsciously as he starts fumbling with Tomas’ shirt buttons.

Tomas lets him bare his chest just enough for Marcus to slip one hand under his shirt, and a full shudder runs through him as he feels Marcus’ fingers gently running through the hair on his chest. Marcus leans forward, nuzzles his face against it and breathes deeply, and Tomas feels weak at the knees.

“F-fuck,” Tomas stammers, “let… let me kneel for you, please, Marcus, I…”

A shy smile flickers across Marcus’ face and he leans back against the wall, his wet clothes squeaking against the chipping paint. He hooks his thumbs in his belt loops and angles his hips _just so,_ and Tomas is ready to expire right then and there. “I should tell you,” Marcus says, not looking at him, “I… there’s this…”

He seems at a loss for words. “It’s alright,” Tomas says gently, as he sinks to his knees. He pulls his shirt off over his head and discards it alongside the jacket. It lands on the floor with a heavy, wet _fwap._ “I don’t mind.”

“You know?” says Marcus, his brow furrowing in consternation.

“It happens to me too, when I’ve had too much to drink,” says Tomas, running his hands up and down Marcus’ thighs. Something’s different, somehow, as though he’s wearing something unfamiliar under his jeans. “I don’t mind if you… you know… if you can’t get it up…”

Tomas feels Marcus’ hand bury itself in his hair just before Marcus presses his face down onto his crotch, grinding his clothed erection against Tomas’ mouth with three slow, firm movements of his hips. Tomas is so hard he thinks he might leak through his pants onto the motel floor. “Is that hard enough for you?” Marcus whispers, ever so slightly smug, and Tomas nods with a wordless whine of pleasure as he starts mouthing at the zipper of Marcus’ jeans.

This was all he’d been thinking about all evening, watching Marcus’ throat work as he drank, and the sheen of sweat on his collarbones from the stifling peanuts-and-grease heat of the bar. Tomas’ teeth find the little metal tab and he drags it slowly down, keeping his teeth clenched tight to keep himself from laughing and ruining the moment. Fuck, alcohol makes him silly. _Marcus_ makes him silly. What the fuck is he doing here, a thousand miles from home and kneeling before the only man in the world that he’d die for.

Marcus’ hand tightens briefly in his hair before he removes his hand, and places them both flat against the wall, as though trying to keep them still. He’s almost shaking, and Tomas wonders why until he reaches up to open Marcus’ jeans properly, and…

_Oh._

Tomas stares, his mouth suddenly very, very dry. He licks his lips, tries to keep his heart from leaping out of of his chest, his soul from bursting. Above him he hears Marcus’ breathing falter, and Tomas has to slowly lean forward to bump his forehead against Marcus’ thigh.

 _“Dios mío,”_ says Tomas, his eyes closed and his voice a little unsteady.

“Is it. . ?” Marcus says weakly. “I know, alright, I… I know I look fucking stupid, but…”

 _“Marcus,”_ Tomas groans, and he feels the same swelling of emotion he felt the first time he knelt for prayer and felt the love of God flood through him like a prism refracting light. His heart feels full, almost too full to speak.

He opens his eyes again and slowly pulls away from Marcus’ thigh, getting a good look for the first time at what Marcus is wearing. It’s fucking _gorgeous,_ all warm, creamy-white lace, slung around Marcus’ hips like a shawl around a saint’s shoulders. Tomas can see little glimpses of a pair of white-buckled straps, and _God,_ Tomas has to know where those lead, and with shaking hands he begins to slip Marcus’ jeans further down his hips.

“Tomas?” Marcus says, his voice full of an anxiety that Tomas cannot allow to stand.

“Marcus,” he says, “you’re as beautiful as the windows at St. Peter’s.”

 _“Don’t,”_ says Marcus, his voice even weaker. “I’m not… I _know_ how it looks.”

“I mean it,” Tomas says desperately, because Marcus has to believe him, he _has_ to. He leans forward to nuzzle his face against Marcus’ crotch, and Marcus gasps in pleasure as a tremble runs through his body. Tomas doesn’t have to look up to know that he’s leaned his head against the wall, his mouth open in a silent groan. Marcus is a man who responds to touch. He’s a man for whom a single kiss could accomplish what a thousand _you’re beautiful’s_ could do, just as Tomas is a man who would trade a thousand kisses just for Marcus to look him in the eye and whisper, “I love you.”

“Let me touch you,” Tomas groans against the lace. “Now, while you’re wearing this,” and in answer to Marcus’ nod, he starts mouthing hungrily at Marcus’ cock through the lace. He digs his fingers into Marcus’ jeans and slides them all the way down off his hips, revealing the white-buckled straps that go down, down, down to the plain white garters wrapped tightly around his thighs, where they would usually hold up stockings. Tomas starts worrying one of the buckles with his tongue, pausing occasionally to nip at the sensitive skin on the inside of Marcus’ thigh.

“Hold still,” he murmurs, reaching up to gently work Marcus’ cock out from under the lace. It’s hot in his hand, hard and hot and velvet-soft all at once, and Tomas can see that Marcus has left a little damp spot of precum against the lace. It makes his mouth water to finally see it.

Marcus’ hand comes down to rest on the back of his head again, no movement this time, only a warm, comforting weight. Tomas closes his eyes as he leans forward and licks a long, wet stripe up the underside of Marcus’ cock.

There’s a _thump_ from overhead as the back of Marcus’ head smacks the wall again.

For Tomas, kneeling before Marcus feels like the most natural thing in the world. He has done it only a handful of times before, but makes up for his inexperience with a relentless enthusiasm. He’s learned what Marcus likes, how best to worship him with his mouth.

Tomas starts giving Marcus’ cock firm, even strokes while he sucks at the head, just enjoying the sensation of holding him in his mouth like this, of feeling the weight of it on his tongue. He can smell that musky scent that means _Marcus_ when he smells it on his clothes or in his bed. He can even feel Marcus’ heartbeat in his cock, throbbing in his mouth.

Tomas takes it into his throat, only for a moment or two as he’s yet to master the act without choking, and swallows wetly around the sensitive head before drawing back, his mouth already flooded with spit and precum. He swallows, making sure it’s loud enough for Marcus to hear, before he starts licking his way under Marcus’ foreskin. He has to brace his hands against Marcus’ hips to keep him standing.

“G-God…” Marcus chokes. “I’m… ahh…”

Tomas digs his fingers harder into Marcus’ hips and starts suckling at the head of his cock in that special way he knows Marcus likes. _Please,_ he thinks, _please, please, I can’t wait anymore_ , and after a few more seconds Marcus finally comes, spilling himself into Tomas’ mouth and letting out a long, low groan through gritted teeth.

Tomas swallows it all, and feels it run hot and slippery down his throat. _This is My body,_ he thinks, and it _is_ Marcus’ body after all, it’s the very _essence_ of it, and the thought brings with it such a blissful contentment that Tomas has to press his cheek against Marcus’ thigh and just breathe for a moment before he licks him clean. Marcus twitches a little at the sensation of Tomas’ tongue on his over-sensitive cock, but he’s too blissed-out and exhausted to whimper, so he lets Tomas tuck him back into his panties before he finally sinks to the floor and sits slumped against the wall. He spreads his legs a little wider so that Tomas can shuffle closer on his knees, and he wraps his own hand around Tomas’ as he strokes himself to climax.

Tomas spends himself across the lacy belt slung across Marcus’ hips, and his legs immediately feel like jelly. He wants to collapse into bed, but bed is a whole four feet away and Marcus is right here, so he slumps himself against the wall next to him and they sit there, not talking for a moment, just breathing heavily and enjoying the sweet, dizzying high of a post-coital wind down.

Marcus shifts a little, just enough to lay his head against Tomas’ shoulder. Tomas kisses the top of his head. “I loved it,” he murmurs. “I really, really loved it.”

“Guess I’ll keep wearing it then,” says Marcus, no longer quite so shy, and together they sit by the wall and watch the motel sign glow neon outside the rain-splashed windows.


	17. Take Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: “Hi! Are you still taking tomarcus prompts by any chance? I can’t stop thinking about one of them developing stigmata symptoms.”
> 
> Important Disclaimer: Actual stigmata is treated as a gift from God. In this particular interpretation of it, it is decidedly Not That.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [body horror, injury, nightmares, visions, stigmata, angst, hurt/comfort but mostly hurt]

 

Marcus knows what his nightmares look like, and this is not one of them.

His dreams are as familiar to him as his scars. He dreams of the agonized birthing-pain he feels when he sees a demon looking out from behind a child’s eyes. He dreams of breaking bones, and bubbling skin, and boys stuck up trees. He dreams of Tomas holding him close, as he’ll never do in life, and suddenly there are three hands on him rather than two, then four, five, and on and on until he’s gripped so tightly that he suffocates, and his skin sloughs off in strips.

But this… this is not a dream.

Marcus watches dimly through the blackened echo-fog of something else’s imagination. Is this what it is to have a vision? Is this what Tomas feels when demon claws scritch-scratch at the inside of his skull? He can see their hotel room, just as it is, and their beds, just as they are, and there is Marcus, sleeping, and Marcus with his eyes wide open, watching from some gloomy, distant corner.

Marcus looks at himself, and thinks, _I look even older than I feel._

He does not look at himself for long.

The thing standing by Tomas’ bedside could generously be described as a monster. It is something tall and narrow and ugly as sin, with eyes like chips of coal at the bottom of a bucket. Its talons drag along the bedspread, a hair’s length from Tomas’ skin. The cotton seems to burn and cauterize as it tears.

Marcus’ blood runs cold. He tries to speak, only to find that his greatest weapon has been taken from him. _The love of God enfolds us_ , he repeats in his mind, and slowly, Marcus’ feet begin to move.

The creature sees this and pauses, its gnarled talons poised over Tomas’ hands. Marcus cannot interpret its expression, but he hopes that it’s frightened.

Carefully, moving with that particular sluggishness that only visions and fever-dreams provide, Marcus climbs onto the bed and places his body over Tomas’. He does not shift in his sleep, nor did Marcus expect him to. This is almost a dream, after all. This is just this side of real.

Marcus closes his eyes tight- _the love of God protects us, the love of God enfolds us-_ and prays for the creature to take him instead.

It does.

 

 

Marcus screams himself awake. Tomas wakes with a startled cry and scrambles himself into a sitting position, reaching across the gap between their beds to turn on the table lamp. “Marcus?” he says, rising panic in his voice. “Marcus?”

Marcus tries to speak, but every breath is an agony, so instead he clasps his hands tightly to his side and tries not to move beyond that. The pain is unimaginable, as though someone has pierced his side and twisted the blade. His legs move under the sweat-drenched blankets and the pain in his side is compounded by a pain in his feet, like stepping on broken glass but with twice the burning.

Dimly he realizes that Tomas is up and out of bed, and kneeling next to Marcus, trying to soothe him and see what’s wrong all at the same time. “It’s,” Marcus wheezes, but that’s all he can get out before a second pain hits him, then a third, both of them cripplingly painful in his hands.

 _Not my hands,_ Marcus thinks desperately, removing them from his side to look at them. They’re trembling, but not bloody. _Not my hands, these hands are not mine to ruin._

Then Tomas has taken his hands, he’s _holding_ them, actually _holding_ them in his own hands, and Marcus can feel the agony begin to wane to a dull throb, rather than the sharp, piercing pain that it had been. “I’m bleeding out,” Marcus whispers hoarsely, “I’m bleeding out.”

“You’re not bleeding,” Tomas stammers, confused and scared and _angry,_ Marcus realizes, he’s _angry._

He has not let go of Marcus’ hands.

“It’s fine,” Marcus says weakly. “The pain is starting to dull. I’ll… I’ll…”

He doesn’t know what he’ll do. God help him, he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

Tomas furiously lets go of his hands and puts his arms around his neck, tugging Marcus into a tight embrace. Marcus can _smell_ him he’s so close, could even put his arms around him in return, _touch_ him, touch him with …

 _My hands are bleeding,_ Marcus thinks deliriously, though he knows, he _knows_ they’re not. _I can’t touch him, I can’t ever fucking touch him._

“This isn’t natural,” Tomas whispers furiously against Marcus’ shoulder. “This is… _Something’s_ done this… I’m going to fix it. I’m going to fix it, Marcus.”

And for a moment, Marcus almost believes him.


	18. Chin Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaving kink, to show that I care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [shaving kink, fluff, pining]

Late one evening, just as Marcus is getting ready to collapse face-first into bed and sleep till Judgement Day, Tomas asks to borrow his straight razor.

Marcus quirks an eyebrow at him. “You don’t know how to use one.”

“Then teach me.”

Every time he hears those insatiable words from Tomas’ lips, it sets his heart stuttering in his chest. _Then teach me._

They cram themselves into the narrow motel bathroom together, Tomas leaning on the sink with his back to the mirror, and Marcus standing over him, uncomfortably aware of his height. The harsh, antiseptic light of the bathroom is too sharp against their faces, throwing into stark relief the imperfections in their skin and the oily sheen of the shaving lather.

“I like the beard,” says Marcus, as he rinses his hands in the sink. “It makes you look older.”

“I like it too,” says Tomas squinting up at him with one eye. “But … you know.”

Marcus does know. After a long time on the road, everything feels unclean. He’s used to it, stopped trying to fight it long ago. But Tomas still eats salads, and stretches in the morning, and tries not to chew his fingernails. A good shave makes a man feel fresh, and _fresh_ is not a word Marcus associates with their way of life.

Marcus unbuckles his belt and snakes it out of his jeans. He folds it over twice, and hangs it up on one of the towel hooks before beginning to pass the blade over it. The metal makes a sharp, raspy hiss against the leather, and Marcus glances up to make sure Tomas is watching him.

He is. His eyes are wide and dark, a stark contrast to the white of the shaving cream, and he’s tapping his fingers almost nervously against the edge of the sink.

“Stop fidgeting,” says Marcus. As an experiment, he gives the razor a particularly extravagant flourish. _Sh-sh-shink._

“I’m not fidgeting,” Tomas mutters, turning pink at the sound of Marcus’ fond chuckle.

Marcus turns the razor over in his hands and comes back to stand in front of Tomas. He nudges one of his knees with his own, and Tomas parts them, letting Marcus stand a little closer.

He tries not to think about how tightly Tomas’ thighs are pressed against his hips.

Tomas looks tired. How long has it been since either of them have slept? Marcus is far from indifferent to Tomas’ face, but even he can’t quite say that Tomas looks _good_ in the artificial light. His skin is sun-scalded, his eyes, red-rimmed and puffy from lack of sleep. But his eyes themselves are as warm and bright as they ever were, looking at Marcus with _affection_ of all things, and when Marcus says, “Chin up,” Tomas lifts his chin just enough to bare his uncollared throat.

The knot of his throat bobs under his skin.

“Careful,” says Tomas. “Don’t cut me.”

“Never,” says Marcus, resting the cool, sharp edge against his skin. “Close your eyes.”

Tomas does, and Marcus realizes for the first time that Tomas _trusts_ him with this, his bare throat under Marcus’ hand.

Marcus glides the blade up his neck, easy and practiced. “Breathe,” he says, because Tomas hasn’t been, and Tomas lets out a low breath that Marcus can feel from where he’s standing. He trusts me, he thinks again, and it’s only that thought which gives him the courage to reach out to tug lightly at the hair at the name of Tomas’ neck, turning his head first one way, to sweep the blade just under his jaw, and then the other.

“Nothing to it,” Marcus says, as he slips the blade whisper-like across Tomas’ jaw and cheek. He had been clean-shaven, when they first met. Shaving him like this makes Marcus feel like time is ticking backwards, like he’s restoring to Tomas something that had been taken from him. It’s difficult to be clean-shaven on the road. Such a little sacrifice, but one that Marcus hates to think of. There aren’t many ways he can care for Tomas, not in ways that Tomas allows, but he can damn well offer him this.

“How’s that?” he asks when he’s through, his hand still holding Tomas’ chin. Tomas’ eyes open and he looks up at him, and something in his expression makes it very difficult for Marcus to look him in the eye.

Tomas touches his own cheek with the back of his hand. “That’s,” he says, and coughs. “That’s better than the, with the razors, with the disposable ones. It’s smoother.”

“Told you,” says Marcus, smoothing off a streak of lingering shaving cream with his thumb. The corner of Tomas’ mouth twitches. “No aftershave though, sorry.”

Tomas’ soft, “Damn,” almost undoes him.

Marcus swallows. “If there _were,”_ he says hoarsely, “you just, you …”

He brings his other hand up and smooths his palms over Tomas’ face and neck. They linger for a moment too long, and Marcus wants desperately to believe that he saw Tomas’ eyes flutter closed again, just for a second.

Marcus drops his hands.

“Like that,” he finishes, somewhat lamely.

“Thank you,” says Tomas. He rubs his hand across his own cheeks, and cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind him. "It feels good."

 _It feels good_. Tomas feels good, because of something Marcus did.

"I look younger," Tomas continues, and Marcus scoffs.

“Too young. I told you, I preferred the beard.”

Tomas laughs, and bumps his shoulder against Marcus’ chest on the way out of the bathroom. “Maybe I’ll grow it back.”


	19. Tattoo Ink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @pandorathexplora writes, “Marcus giving Tomas a tattoo as part of his initiation into being a full exorcist, I need someone to write this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [fluff, pining, angst, tattoos / tattooing, needles]

Marcus has a black box at the bottom of his bag. Needles, dental floss, cotton swabs, ink, a pen, and a little bottle of rubbing alcohol that Tomas is vaguely surprised he hasn’t drank like a shot already.

They’re in Arizona, when they decide to do it. Marcus pulls well off the road, out into the red dust and the strange, alien rock formations. Marcus turns off the engine, and together they are plunged into the silence of a cold desert night. The silence would be disconcerting, if not for the warm, regular huffs of Marcus breathing next to him.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” Marcus teases, nudging Tomas’ arm with his elbow as he opens the door.

He’s teasing, but also asking, and Tomas chuckles as he steps out into the desert. A puff of dust rises up around his boots with every step. “Yeah,” he says. “I have been looking forward to it, actually.”

He grips the edge of the bed of the truck and hoists himself up to it, landing with a plasticky thump next to Marcus, who is already sitting cross-legged against the back window and fiddling with the box, taking out the swabs and alcohol. It will hurt- Tomas knows this- but he’s not afraid of it. It’s difficult to be afraid of anything anymore.

Tomas tilts his head back and breathes deeply of the cool desert air. It’s easy to feel close to God here, with the open sky above him and Marcus at his side. He can see the stars. He never saw the stars in Chicago. Across from him, he hears a _click_ and the scratchy, brassy sound of an old cassette, and he realizes with a smile that Marcus has brought the tape deck out to keep them company.

Marcus gestures for Tomas’ hand, so he gives it to him, and doesn’t say anything when Marcus rests it on his own knee. Marcus feels bony and solid under his hand.

“The million-dollar question,” says Marcus, running his thumb over the bare patch of skin at Tomas’ wrist. “What do you want?”

Marcus always asks that, like it matters, like he wants to know. _What do you want._ This time Tomas knows, and he doesn’t have to think about it. “A gun-barrel,” he says promptly. “Like yours.”

Marcus stiffens. For a moment, his hand stills on Tomas’ wrist. Then he lets him go, picks up a cotton swab instead and doesn’t say anything.

“That’s,” he says, then stops. Tomas worries he’s touched a nerve, shown his hand in a way that makes Marcus uncomfortable, but when he leans forward to touch his neck Marcus doesn’t shy away.

“That’s not for _you,”_ Marcus says finally. “That’s a reminder, for me. Of what I am. And you’re not. . . an object.”

His words are slow when he has to speak like this. Marcus is not as comfortable with words as Tomas, much preferring to speak with his hands and eyes. Tomas swallows, looks down at his own hand again. “You’re not an object either,” he says, trying to keep his voice light, to dispel the heaviness between them. “You’re a child of God.”

Marcus’ humorless chuckle cuts Tomas right to the heart. He cracks open the bottle of rubbing alcohol and daubs a little onto the cotton swab. He only brings it to Tomas’ wrist after its thoroughly soaked, and begins to disinfect the skin.

“A cross, maybe,” Marcus says quietly. “To remind you that you’re loved.”

Tomas says nothing, only nods at the outline pen in Marcus’ tattoo kit, and Marcus passes it to him. Tomas carefully outlines the tattoo on his wrist, very lightly, giving Marcus room to work. A circle, with a cross dividing it into quarters, and a smaller circle in each quarter. Simple, and clean.

“There,” says Tomas. “A bit more involved than yours, maybe, but. . . it’s a circle too.”

Something indefinable crosses Marcus’ face. He takes Tomas’ hand in his, and Tomas is sure for a moment that he felt him shudder at the touch. Marcus looks at the outline, smeared black against Tomas’ dark skin, and then at the medal dangling from his own bracelet.

He gives Tomas’ hand a little squeeze before he sets it on his knee again, holding it still as he picks up the needle. “Close your eyes,” he says gently, “and hold still.”

Tomas closes his eyes.


	20. Best Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU in which Marcus Keane and Tomas Ortega were best friends as children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [fluff, angst, kid!fic, implied/referenced canon-typical child abuse]

Marcus Keane is seven years old. He’s got shoes that light up, and his parents are from England, and he sits in the back of the class and shoots spitballs at Mr. McCourtney when his back is turned. One time he found a cigarette on the ground and he smoked the whole thing. He’s Tomas’ hero, and he’s Tomas’ best friend in the whole wide world.

They don’t get to hang out much, not really, because Tomas has choir practice and soccer practice and every other practice you can think of, not to mention homework. But they’re friends all the same, and sometimes Tomas is so giddy with excitement about it that he can hardly sleep, too eager to see Marcus after school tomorrow.

His bedroom is right next door to Mom and Dad’s, and he can hear them arguing late into the night when they think he’s gone to bed. It’s about money, usually. One time he’d overheard them say something about soccer practice, and, assuming they couldn’t afford it, he had tearfully gone to them the next morning and said it was okay, he didn’t need soccer practice after all. There had been a lot of crying and hugging that day, and Tomas thought it was all alright, but by the next midnight they were arguing again, and Tomas buries his head under his pillow and wishes Marcus were around. _He’d_ know what to do.

It goes on like this, until finally, _finally_ the reprieve. The great big exhale at the end of a long day. The moment when life really begins.

_Summer vacation._

 

On the first day of summer, Tomas wakes up way before noon. He’s out of bed in an instant, pressing his face against the window so his nose goes all pig-like, and sure enough Marcus Keane is _right there,_ sitting on the lawn in one of his oversized hand-me-down sweaters.

Tomas tugs on his clothes at once and is halfway out the door before his mother leans out of the kitchen and says “Ah, ah, ah!” Tomas stops reluctantly and walks back to her, lets her do up the laces on his shoes for him and give him an apple and a piece of toast. “Eat _all_ of that,” she says firmly, as Tomas scampers out into the sunshine. He’s dimly aware of her saying something about _the importance of breakfast_ behind his back, but he doesn’t care, because _Marcus is here._

Marcus has moved to the gravel walkway now, and is kicking at a loose stone. His sneakers light up, red and blue and white. “Hi.”

“Hi!” says Tomas, through a mouthful of toast. “Want my apple?”

Marcus perks up. “For real?”

“Sure,” says Tomas, and the apple is out of his hands before he can blink.

Marcus bites into it with a satisfying crunch, and tilts his head to squint at the sun. “Thanks. What do you wanna do?” he says, as though addressing the sky.

“I dunno,” says Tomas, quite content to do whatever Marcus is doing.

“I dunno either,” says Marcus.

“We could go to your house?”

“I don’t wanna go to my house,” Marcus says petulantly.

“Okay,” says Tomas. He’s run out of ideas, and toast.

“We should go ding-dong ditch Devon’s mom,” says Marcus, with all the authority of a Prussian drill sergeant.

“I dunno,” Tomas mumbles. They begin wandering their cheery way down the street. “I can’t run very fast.”

“Sure you can,” says Marcus, and he shoves Tomas with his arm and takes of down the street. “C’mon!”

And Tomas _runs._

Running is what he loves. He loves it like he loves soccer, or ice cream, or Marcus Keane. And no matter where they’re running, how fast or how far, Marcus slows down for Tomas and Tomas pushes himself faster for Marcus. They keep pace with each other like that for two whole blocks.

They get distracted before they reach Devon’s house by some gum stuck to the bench at the bus stop. Marcus says he’ll eat it for a dollar. “I don’t have a dollar,” whines Tomas. It feels like the greatest tragedy of his lifetime.

 

“No!” Tomas laughs, as he throws another stone across the lake. _Skip, skip … plop._ Tomas wonders if you could catch fish this way, if you had _really_ good timing.

Marcus gets right up in Tomas’ face and stares him dead in the eyes. _“Fuck.”_

Tomas bonks his forehead against Marcus’ and they both stagger away from each other, clutching their heads in exaggerated pain. “No!” Tomas says firmly. “You can’t say that, Jesus will be mad at you.”

Marcus giggles. “If Dad heard me saying that, he’d kick my ass. _You_ say it.”

“No way.”

“C’mon!”

“Marcus!” Tomas whines. _“Jesus!”_

“That’s a dirty word too sometimes,” Marcus points out.

Tomas claps a hang over his mouth in shock, then sticks out his tongue and wipes it off with the palm of his hand. “Yeurgh! Mom says boys with dirty mouths don’t get to sing in church.”

“I don’t know _why_ you’d want to sing in church,” Marcus says, stooping to pick up another rock. He flicks it out over the water. _Skip, skip, skip … plop._ One more skip than Tomas got. He’s so cool. “It’s just a lot of dusty old hymns.”

Tomas tries throwing another rock. This one only skips once before it sinks. “I’m bored,” he says, which is what he usually says when he doesn’t succeed right away. “You wanna come have lunch at my house?”

Marcus’ face brightens up. “I’m _starving,”_ he says eagerly. “I didn’t get breakfast.”

“You ate some of my breakfast.”

“Yeah, but I meant,” says Marcus, as they toss the last of their rocks over the shoulder and start wandering back home. “If I didn’t get your breakfast, I wouldn’t get _any.”_

 

They meet almost every day of summer, and the world seems open to them. Marcus teaches Tomas swearwords as they sit next to the lake and watch the salamanders creep through the grass. Tomas gets five dollars from his _abuela_ for his birthday and he spends one of them on Marcus next time they see a piece of gum stuck somewhere, and he _actually eats it_ and it’s the best and grossest thing Tomas has ever seen.

They’re inseparable, joined at the hip, and though Marcus has had lunch at the Ortega household innumerable times, (“What are they feeding you young man, here, have some more _tamales,”)_ Tomas has yet to even see Marcus’ house.

“At least tell me where it is,” he complains to Marcus one day, as they’re sitting on the floor of Tomas’ bedroom, freestyling an intricate Lego construction.

“No way, mate,” says Marcus. He says that sometimes. _Mate._ Like an Australian. Tomas asked him what it meant and he said it meant friend, which made Tomas’ little heart do cartwheels.

“Why not?”

“‘Cause then you’d come around to my window like I do with yours,” says Marcus, “and then Dad would kick your ass. He doesn’t know I’m friends with you.”

“Oh,” says Tomas. He looks down at their Legos. The ones on Tomas’ side have been sorted by color. The one’s on Marcus’ side have been mashed together into a great big pile, like a rainbow junkyard. “I don’t like your dad.”

“You’ve never met him.”

“I don’t like him.”

Marcus gives him a grateful look, then looks down at his hands as he struggles to pry apart two of the thin pieces that have been stuck together. His fingernails scrabble at the plastic. He’s got band-aids on three of his fingers.

“He’s not a bad guy,” he says, grimacing as he pries the two pieces apart. “It’s not like he's evil or anything. He’s just Dad, y’know?”

 

Tomas wakes up late the next morning.

No rocks at the window. No Marcus on the lawn.

“Stay inside today,” says his mother. “The both of you.”

Tomas and Olivia press their faces against the same window and watch the police lights flicker all up and down the street.

 

Days go by, then weeks. A month of summer, gone, and still no Marcus.

“I’m not sure,” says Mom cautiously when Tomas asks if she knows where Marcus lives. “Why don’t you go play with Devon?”

“I don’t want to play with Devon,” says Tomas. “He’s no fun. Where does Marcus live?”

“I’m not sure,” Mom says again, and Tomas goes to his room and closes the door.

He sits with his back against his bed and puts his arms around his knees. He stays there all day, sulking. He tries to read, but he can’t focus, and the words are too confusing anyway. He wants to go outside, but Marcus isn’t there, so it won’t be fun anyway.

That night, he hears his parents arguing again.

He sticks his head under his pillow and whispers,  _“Fuck.”_

 

The new school year rolls around, and there’s an empty seat at the back of the class.

 _“Where’s Marcus?”_ Tomas scream-cries at Mom, who’s supposed to _fix_ this, she’s supposed to _help._

It’s his first tantrum in months, and Mom doesn’t know how to calm him down. She hugs him close, even though he kicks her, and tells him that Marcus moved away.

“Marcus was sick,” she tries to say, “and he did a really bad thing, and he’s … I’m sure he’s with people who are going to help him not do those really bad things anymore.”

“No,” Tomas whines, kicking her shins with shoes that don’t light up. “No, no, no!”

He doesn’t sleep at all that night. Or the night after that, or the night after that.

 

_It’s him._

_It has been years, but Tomas would know him anywhere._

_The slope of his shoulders is just the same._

_The way his breath enters and leaves him. The look in his eyes when he squints._

_But he’s here, in this terrible place, a place that looks like it’s never seen the summer sunshine. There’s a boy on the bed before him, a boy like the one he used to be, and he’s driving something corrupt out from under the boy’s skin. Or he’s trying to._

_His hair is no longer wheat-blond and tousled, it’s graying and shorn close to the skull, like a prisoner’s. He’s got his shirt sleeves rolled up, and muscles move under his scarred forearms._

_His shoes don’t light up anymore._

_But it’s him._

 

Father Tomas wakes up, sweat-slick and terrified.

_“Marcus.”_


	21. Bar Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [protective Tomas, angst, hurt / comfort, requited unrequited love, implied / referenced homophobia]

It’s moments like this that make Tomas wonder why he left Chicago.

He’s leaning against the wall of a filthy alleyway, his shoulder stooped, his skin cold against the brickwork where his shirt has rucked up at the back. His head is aching, with the promise of a worse ache to come, and the night air feels cold and sharp against his split lip.

Tomas stares at the wall and thinks, _why did I go?_

But the fact remains that he had gone. He had stepped out of the boat and into a churning sea of uncertainty, a sea that had thrown him up on the rocky shores of this dirty New York alleyway, where the stench of rot and his own blood was almost unbearable and the only light to see by was one tired, greenish streetlamp. He’d been thrown out of a bar like a teenager. Rising star, how you’ve fallen.

Tomas breathes deeply of the stinking night air, and sighs in relief when he feels no pain. No permanent damage done, then. His face will swell, he knows that, but when the swelling goes down, he will be good as new. Tomas cares deeply about his face these days, in a way he never used to before. The sin of vanity grips him tight.

The back door of the bar is an old, ugly thing covered in flaking red paint, and Tomas stares at it, waiting for it to open. There is always that treacherous thought that sneaks into his mind whenever he is apart from Marcus Keane- _maybe he won’t come back._ But he always does, every time, their Heavenly Father pulling taut the cord that binds them like the moon dragging the waves back to the shore. _Here you are, embrace each other. Sharpen yourselves against each other like iron sharpens iron._

And sure enough the door swings open, banging off the damp wall as Marcus is roughly expelled out into the alley, stumbling as he regains his footing. The bouncer reaches out, slams the door shut with a rusty creak, and they are alone.

It’s moments like this that make Tomas remember exactly why he left Chicago.

“Hey,” says Tomas, hating how hoarse his voice sounds, and Marcus is by his side in an instant. His hands on his shoulders, then sliding up, touching his neck, his _cheek,_ because dear Marcus doesn’t know how fucking filthy Tomas is, how he profanes everyone he loves with sinful thoughts.

“Hey,” Marcus says, his voice a little unsteady. “Talk to me. You okay?”

His hand is still on Tomas’ cheek, he’s not moving it, and Tomas has to fight to keep his eyes open because _he can’t know._ If he knows, then those innocuous little touches will stop, and Tomas can’t bear that. He can’t.

“I’m fine,” Tomas says with a small smile. “I can handle a fight, Marcus. I’m a big guy.”

Marcus laughs nervously. “I know. I know you are,” He takes his hand away, uses it to wipe his mouth, rub his eyes. “Fuck, Tomas,” he says.

“I thought you were looking forward to getting kicked out of a bar with me.”

“Yeah,” Marcus says, and he sounds frustrated, irritated, _confused,_ everything Tomas hadn’t wanted. “Yeah, I did, but …”

Tomas pushes himself a little more upright against the wall, tries not to slouch. “But what?”

“You shouldn’t have stepped in.”

Marcus is looking at him with the same urgent intensity that he inspects the possessed with. In the face of that gaze, Tomas draws himself up to his full height. He’s shorter than Marcus, but neither of them feel it.

“Of course I stepped in,” he says slowly.

“I had it handled,” Marcus says. “I had it … I had it handled.”

“He touched you.”

“I had it handled, _Tomas.”_

“He touched you, _Marcus,”_ Tomas says again, his voice rising. “I could not let that stand.”

He is angry now too. Angry at himself, for not hitting harder. Angry at the men inside, with their nicotine breath and their dirty hands. Angry at Marcus, who a moment ago had been up against a wall with his shirt collar gripped in somebody’s fist, somebody’s knee between his legs, and a thick New York accent threatening to wipe that crooked grin off his face for good. There had been a word spoken, a slur thrown at Marcus that was loud enough for the whole bar to hear, and Tomas had finished his club soda, turned, and cracked that sonuvabitch’s head against a wall.

He’d had friends. They were big, but Tomas was bigger.

And now here Marcus stands, blood dripping from his nose because Tomas hadn’t managed to shield him from every punch, and he actually thinks for one fucking second that Tomas shouldn’t have done it. That he wouldn’t do it again, and again, and again.

“Tomas,” he says shakily, “this is not the first time something like this has happened to me. I’ve dealt with it before, and I’ve done it alone.”

Tomas shakes his head. “You don’t have to do it alone anymore.”

“But I could have. I don’t need you to stand up for me.”

“Maybe you didn’t,” says Tomas. The words feel bitter in his mouth. “Maybe you didn’t. But maybe _I_ needed to stand up for you. Alright?”

There’s a silence that hangs between them, broken only by the distant sound of cars, and the rattling of the subway as it passes beneath them. Tomas is acutely aware of the pain of his split lip, and brings up the back of his hand to put pressure on it.

“Why?” Marcus asks. His voice is so quiet, Tomas almost misses it.

“Because,” Tomas says, and he’s shocked to find he has no idea how to answer. _Because I wanted you to kiss me,_ is his first thought, but it’s an ugly thought that makes him ashamed. _No, not for that. I would never ask anything of you, in exchange for this._

“Because … you’re my partner,” Tomas says, because it is possible to love a partner so much that you would die for him and ask for nothing, and because maybe, just maybe, Marcus will look deep enough into the word and see something else.

Marcus is quiet, when he tells him this.

“Thank you,” he says. He is gentle, when he says it. He is always so gentle with his words around Tomas.

Marcus slips his arms around Tomas’ shoulders, and Tomas lets himself close his eyes this time. “C’mon,” Marcus murmurs, his voice too close to Tomas’ ear. “Lets get you cleaned up.”


	22. Skin Hunger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [touch starvation]

The knock on Tomas’ door is so quiet, so unsure, that he almost misses it. A single knock, and the ghost of a second one.

It’s a warm October night, and Tomas has left the window cracked open; he can feel the breeze as it gently disturbs the air in his room, threatening to turn the pages of his novel before he’s finished them. He’s sitting up in bed, a dog-eared paperback in one hand and a half-eaten granola bar in the other, enjoying the weight of the heavy, hand-sewn bedspread on his legs and the quiet, insistent chirping of frogs outside his window. It’s been a long time since he’s stayed in a bed and breakfast, let alone one run by a family so immediately endearing, and so insistently grateful to have their daughter safely returned to them with nothing but a split lip to document the ordeal she’d been through.

It’s a good place, full of dark hallways, floral wallpaper, and artificial candles.Tomas’ room has an overstuffed armchair by the window, and a disused fireplace that hasn’t seen fire in years. Mrs. Sullivan had put them down for two rooms, and Tomas hadn’t corrected her.

Tomas had believed that one night apart from Marcus would be a pleasant reprieve. A moment to himself, to rest and renew.

The knock on the door shatters that illusion. All at once, Tomas’ heart aches to have Marcus back in the room.

Tomas leaves the book and the granola bar on the bedside table without a second thought, folding up his reading glasses and laying them beside them. He slides out from under the quilted bedspread to shuffle across the floor to the door. He opens it, realizing too late that the door opens out from the main hall on the second floor and he’s in little more than briefs and an undershirt, but the door isn’t open for long. Marcus sidles in, leading with his shoulder, and Tomas closes the door behind him with his hip.

Marcus is still fully dressed, even at this late hour. His hands are shoved deep, deep in his pockets, and his gaze is downcast, as it often is when he’s thinking very hard. There are dark circles under his eyes. He hasn’t been sleeping.

“Shh,” whispers Tomas. He’s not sure why he says it- Marcus is silent, but Tomas can almost _hear_ the noise in his head- and he reaches out to put his hand on Marcus’ shoulder.

Marcus stiffens under the touch, then brings his hand up to wrap his fingers around Tomas’ wrist. He grips him like he wants to leave an impression in his skin.

Tomas holds very, very still, and lets Marcus explore him. It was not so long ago when they began to do this, and still it’s a novelty; he bites his tongue, keeps even the slightest sigh or moan from leaving his lips as Marcus runs his hand up Tomas’ bare arm, then back down to his wrist. This is for Marcus, he reminds himself, not for him. “Shh,” he says again, and he catches himself thinking, _take, take, take, my skin is yours, my heat is yours, my breath is yours, take, take, take._

Marcus reaches out his other hand, lays it flat across Tomas’ bare shoulder. Then he digs in, his blunt fingernails reddening Tomas’ skin, like he’s squeezing an apple before biting into it. Tomas holds still, doesn’t move, barely breathes, until he knows it’s what Marcus wants.

Marcus moves forward, sliding his hand up and over Tomas’ shoulder until it can slip under his undershirt at the back, and Tomas lets out a shaky, overwhelmed exhale as Marcus presses the full length of his body against him, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. _That’s the way,_ he thinks desperately. _That’s the way, baby. Oh, I would envelop you if I could. I would hold you under my very skin._

It’s a mad thought, a terrible, mad, delirious thought, and maybe it’s that that makes him wrap his arms around Marcus, his embrace warm and tight and not as demanding as he wants it to be. He feels Marcus tremble in his arms, but he doesn’t stiffen, or try to move away. Tomas runs his hands slowly up and down Marcus’ back, and doesn’t try to remove his shirt. Marcus will remove his shirt on his own if that’s what he wants; Tomas knows better. If he touches Marcus’ skin in that way without permission, either he will spook like a frightened animal, or he will spend himself, and fall limp and ashamed in Tomas’ arms. He has done both before, even when Tomas has been careful, careful, careful with him. The healing is slow, but worth it for a man like Marcus. More than worth it. It is a _privilege_ to give him this.

Tomas moves his feet and gently steers them backwards. Marcus’ cheek is resting against his shoulder now, his mouth slightly open, and his eyes closed. He is there, though, he’s not sleeping; Tomas can tell by the pattern of his breath against his neck, by the ways his hands roam Tomas’ back beneath his undershirt, tracing his ribs and chasing his pulse. Tomas leads them gently backwards into the armchair by the window. He sits, leans back as best he can, and Marcus, after a split second’s hesitation, follows suit.

He sits on Tomas’ lap, very carefully, and Tomas almost cries. He’s light, too light for a man of such size. They exchange shy smiles as Marcus attempts to make some sense of his limbs, finally settling for throwing his legs over the arm of the chair, and placing one hand on Tomas’ chest, while the other is folded up beneath him, crushed against the chair.

Tomas tilts his head back, lets Marcus nestle his head just under his chin, in the place that has been made for him, and closes his eyes. He can feel Marcus’ breath against his neck begin to slow as he slips at last into sleep, and he tightens his grip around Marcus, keeping him in an embrace just shy of too tight. Tomas needs to hold him almost as badly as he needs to be held.

They fall asleep in each other’s arms, and sleep easy for the first time in weeks


	23. Father Sean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [kid!fic AU, graphic non-sexual canon-compliant child abuse]

Tomas and Devon don’t have the Holy Spirit in them. They whisper to Marcus about it at night, when they huddle under the blankets of Devon’s bed and murmur as quietly as they can to avoid getting caught. But it’s okay, though. Marcus knows that God made a mistake when He picked him, and soon enough, Devon and Tomas will be worthy of the Holy Spirit too.

Father Sean is an adamant believer in the reforging of young minds. Baptism first by water, then by fire. To become worthy of the Holy Spirit, one must be disciplined in mind, body, and soul. He upholds these values with perfidious intensity, and in return, he enjoys the respect of his students and his peers.

Discipline of the body, mind, and soul, is the cornerstone of exorcism. Father Sean makes sure they take this lesson to heart.

Marcus arrived at the monastery with eighteen other children on that late, damp October afternoon. Five of them were malnourished through their own negligence and self-abuse; they were quickly dismissed. Of the fourteen remaining, three were already diseased or otherwise imperfect, four did not speak English and showed no signs of being easily taught, and one refused to eat until he left the monastery in a body bag.

That left six. Half of them were sinful, wicked things, with bratty tongues and stomachs that heaved with vomit when they were placed before a demon for the first time.

And then there were three.

Father Sean’s boys. Marcus, Tomas, and Devon.

Tomas is plump like a robin in spring, and has a voice to match. Father Sean says this is why the Holy Spirit chose Marcus instead. _Body, mind, and soul, boy, and if your body is a temple, it is one unfit for even pigs to inhabit._

So Marcus watches as Tomas skips meals, and pulls the muscles in his arms from digging the trenches in the grounds. When he’s not exerting his body, he’s singing for the choir, or reciting prayers of penance in the dark. Marcus steals apples from the kitchen sometimes, and hides them in Tomas’ bed. He can hear the crunching, late at night, and ignores the hunger that growls in his belly-pinched stomach. Tomas needs the food more. Tomas needs it more.

But he’ll grow up to be beautiful, that boy. Marcus can tell just by looking at him. He’ll grow up to be a movie star. An exorcist. He’ll be better at it than Marcus ever was, even if he doesn’t have God moving in his skin like a ringworm.

When Devon came to them, meanwhile, he barely spoke a word of English. He had a cruel, narrow look to him, but an expression of such neutral placidity that he seemed to project the calm of a Buddhist monk. Father Sean hated that, and he hated that his slaps could not produce a single cry from the boy. _You dimwit!_ he had declared. _You numbskull! I’ll beat good English into your head if I have to. The Lord your God will not reveal himself to your tiny, criminal mind if you continue to live in ignorance._

So Devon began to study. He picked up English quickly, then Latin, then Greek. By the age of fourteen he could recite the Bible back to front in fourteen spoken languages and three dead ones. He had the use of his left hand beaten out of him, and used only his right; his handwriting bore the neat, effective slant of a lawyer’s penmanship. At arithmetic, he was unparalleled. At etiquette, he was a perfect prince.

Marcus, by comparison, was a sinful, ugly thing. He kept to himself, for fear of what his friendship might bring down indirectly on the heads of Tomas and Devon. Privately, they called themselves his disciples. He did not know this, and would have hated it if he did.

His was a reforging of the soul, not the body or the mind. He had the Holy Spirit running hot in him, and, as Father Sean often said to him, he did not know the meaning of that gift. To carry Christ’s burden, one must first know Christ’s suffering. So while Tomas strained to lift weights, and while Devon strained to remember names and dates, Marcus closed his eyes and held his breath, and felt his body go numb as he was baptized in freezing ice water. Again, and again, and again.

This happen regularly. Other times he would be beaten. He would spread his arms and bare his back, and they would lash him until he fainted. Christ had endured thirty-nine lashes. Marcus, a boy of only thirteen, usually passed out at three. But it was the suffering of Christ, and the vessel of God must be made to endure it. This was his understanding, and his purpose.

There were only a few moments, during all those lonely months, when he was happy.

Here, crouching behind the blackberry bushes, was Marcus’ safe place. Here he could breathe in the sweet stink of high summer, smelling the too-ripe fruit and the cow shit and the trampled grass. Breathing. Just breathing.

He is not often alone like this, with God, and the grass, and the sun. You’re never really alone … not in this place … but in those few stolen moments after lunch, when nobody is looking for him and nobody cares if he lives or dies, he can come here. Crouch in the bushes. Pick blackberry seeds out of his teeth and wait for Tomas and Devon.

Marcus Keane, scabby-kneed, gangly-armed, long-haired Marcus Keane, is the one that’s blessed. He doesn’t know why. Devon is better than he is, though they’re the same age. Tomas is better than him too. They’re beautiful, and they glow in the sun when Marcus only shrinks into the shelter of the nearby trees. They deserve the Holy Spirit in them. It shouldn’t be Marcus. It should never, ever have been Marcus.

He loves these moments, waiting for them to arrive after lunch. They always do, creeping behind the blackberry bushes with him, their heads ducked as they doing him to pick at the berries. Devon smiles when they do this. Tomas’ hands are sticky with blackberry juice when he punches Marcus on the shoulder and tell him to _fuck off,_ a whispered curse that draws giggles from all three of them.

A little piece of summer, in the endless winter of the monastery.


	24. My Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: "Y'know there's been a lot of "Marcus agonizes over his feelings/desire for Tomas fic" (that's fine! it's good fic) but not much about how Tomas might agonize over his desire for Marcus. Like his lust has gotten him in trouble before and now God has put him together with Marcus, the amazing exorcist who is teaching him so much and is so admirable and Tomas. Just wants to fuck him. Which is probably extra painful when Marcus leaves and Tomas wonders if its partially bc he couldnt hide his want"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [angst, self-hatred, self-flagellation, pining]

What an ugly thing it was, to be in love.

The love came first and the lust came after, and both sent spikes of shame through Tomas’ heart. One early August afternoon, Marcus had been teaching him to shoot a gun. He has stood just behind him, lifted Tomas’ arms with a gentle nudge under the elbow, and whispered, _fire._ Tomas had run the gamut from love to lust to shame to guilt to love again, all before the bullet struck its mark. He felt like a child again, all hormones and wandering hands, before he’d had such desires stamped out of him at seminary.

How many lessons had there been, in a similar vein? Tomas had wanted to know everything, and Marcus had smiled with endearing shyness and said, _well, all right then,_ and he’d done it. He’d taught him everything. The shooting came first, then the knife work. They would stay up late, Marcus reading the Bible and Tomas reading back to him, until he could recite the words of God back to front in five different languages. Marcus had taught him how to siphon gas, how to hotwire a car, how to tie a knot so the wrists of the possessed would not break when they struggled. He had been a very good teacher, and Tomas, fool that he was, had fallen in love with him.

Marcus loved everyone. Easily and casually, as though love was nothing to him. He was so full of love that it spilled over, in his innumerable casual intimacies and gentle touches. He shouted in the ears of the possessed, _you are loved,_ and he meant it. He whispered it into his clasped hands as he prayed benedictions over Tomas, _you are loved,_ and he meant it. That only made the lust all the more painful, as Tomas lay awake late into the night, listening to Marcus’ breathing in the next bed, longing to touch him but terrified of the consequences of doing so. That he might have mistaken Marcus’ love for _love,_ that was a thought unthinkable.

A man God had given him for love, love, love, and Tomas wanted to fuck him.

He’s obvious about it, he knows he is, and shame cripples his heart every time. Tomas’ every action is burned into his mind, to be replayed and analyzed later. _When you touched his shoulder and your thumb brushed his neck, that was for lust. When you sat next to him at breakfast and his thigh touched yours, and you did not move away, that was lust. When you lingered in the open bathroom door as he showered, watching his silhouette through the curtain as he rubbed soap down his chest and under his arms, that was for lust, lust, lust and you should be ashamed._

Yet despite all that, he had held out hope. Despite his imperfections, he had imagined that Marcus would remain true, faithful to whatever love-not-love they had. Marcus always came back, always, no matter how vain Tomas was, no matter how base, how corrupt…

“Vain,” he whispers to himself in the mirror, his hands clamped down hard on the edges of the sink. “Base. Corrupt. Lusting, oath-breaking, adulterous, self-pitying…”

He can hear the TV in the other room, flicking between channels. Mouse is looking for documentaries. She knows Tomas loves documentaries. She knows he needs comfort, after the violence of their last exorcism, but she does not believe in comfort, and this is the best she can do. She is a good woman. Marcus had been a good man. He would have known what to do, somehow, instinctually. He would have put his arm around Tomas’ shoulders- _like a brother-_ and whispered hot and warm in his ear- _only like a brother-_ and said “Let’s go break some hearts,” and Tomas would have followed him to the end of the world and back.

But when it counted, Tomas didn’t follow him. He let Marcus walk out the door, because it was no more than Tomas deserved.

“Fuck-up,” he says to the mirror again, bowing his head and staring at the drain. His hands are shaking where they grip the sink. “Arrogant… careless… _foolish… ungrateful…”_

Tomas takes a deep breath, tries to steady himself. He needs to be touched. Mouse won’t touch him, and he wouldn’t welcome her if she did. The thought is so small, so traitorous- _I need to be touched-_ that it makes him almost angry, and he balls his hand into a fist and slams it down onto his thigh, making it ache. _There’s your touch._

He hears Mouse talking in the other room, saying something about the bathroom. He takes a moment to rinse his face, and daub a little cold water on the back of his neck, before he leaves.

He says nothing of what he’s thinking, and Mouse doesn’t ask to know.


	25. In Public

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon writes: "But like. The boys having to deal with homophobia both casual and not as they are two men who are clearly not related traveling together through small town America. And Marcus really is gay and Tomas knows that and Marcus knows he knows and its just. A lot to think about"
> 
> Anon writes: “What about Marcus coming to terms with the fact that everyone assumes he and Tomas are a gay couple? I mean Tomas would need to deal with it too, but Marcus having been told his whole life that being gay was wrong, that he couldn’t have it, that he’d never find a loving partner oh and also your genes are probably terrible so being alone is for the best and now it’s like he’s kinda sorta living an openly gay life?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [racism, homophobia, angst, hurt/comfort]

Marcus feels all things deeply. Love and faith and fear, but anger in particular. Anger gets its worrisome teeth into his heart and bites down hard until he bleeds. He’s a man born for fighting. A man who not only endures the kicks and scratches, but grins and bears them. Bloody teeth and bloodier knuckles. In Tomas’ eyes, that’s when he’s at his most beautiful.

Not long ago, Tomas had leaned in the doorway of their greasy motel bathroom and watched Marcus sitting on the wobbly plastic lid of the toilet, his shirt rucked up and his hands slick with his own blood as he stitched himself together. “Let me,” Tomas had said, and Marcus let out a disagreeable huff.

“You don’t know how,” he’d said.

“Then show me,” and Tomas had knelt beside him, took the blood-slick needle from his hands and finished his work, letting Marcus’ instructions guide him until the job was done. Marcus was afraid of many things, it seemed, but not pain. He hadn’t flinched, not once, even when Tomas’ hand had slipped and the needle had struck home.

It was Tomas’ fault that he had sustained that injury. Tomas had kissed him in a greasy bar in Tennessee, and Marcus had flinched then, like a dog expecting to be beaten. “Not here,” he had hissed, his eyes flickering to every exit sign. He always took inventory of them when they entered, and was always the last one out when they left. Marcus was not a man who was accustomed to being at ease.

“We have to go,” he’d said angrily, _“now,”_ but Tomas was happy and full and light-headed with alcohol, and gripped Marcus’ sleeve until he sat back down in his seat.

“It’s okay,” he had said, (he would replay those words in his mind late at night, weeks later, long after the stitches had been removed, leaving barely a scar,) “It’s alright. Try to enjoy yourself.”

But Marcus, angrier and wiser and more bitter than Tomas ever was, sat in his chair nervous and twitching, his bright blue eyes very dark as they flickered towards the men sitting at the bar. There were three of them. Watching. One of them whispered behind his hand, and another laughed.

When Tomas replayed the scene later in his mind, he would imagine the men to be bigger, uglier than they were. When they crossed the floor to their table, he would imagine them moving as one, rather than one taking the lead while the other two straggled behind, uncertain.

But he remembers with great clarity the speed with which Marcus had stood up and stepped in front of Tomas, teeth bared in a mirthless grin, like an animal with its hackles raised. He was smaller than them, but he was more used to fighting. More accustomed to that genetic anger that rose up in him, giving way to that easy violence which moves his hands to bloody the noses of lesser men. Tomas is big too, and he stood up next to him. The confrontation was short, but violent, and they were forced to flee town before the authorities arrived, Tomas’ grip white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and Marcus clutching his side as he bled out in the shotgun seat. Tomas could feel the pain and anger coming off Marcus in waves, but beneath it exhaustion. Resignation. A sense of not-the-first, and not-the-last.

It didn’t get easier.

It isn’t easier, even now.

It’s much the same, day after day, town after town, moonlit drive after moonlit drive. Eventually they’re in Arizona and Marcus leaves him alone at the bar, just for a moment, long enough to take a leak in the men’s room and not much else, and a man grips Tomas’ shoulder and turns him roughly around. He stumbles when he walks, and he slurs his speech; a man too drunk to stand or think. Tomas feels himself go white hot with anger as the man fists his hand in the front of Tomas’ shirt and demands to know how many other little faggots he smuggled across the border with him, if a white man’s cock satisfies him more than wetback pussy ever did.

He breaks the man’s nose with his forehead, and again, he’s driven out of town, this time sitting dead-eyed and silent in the shotgun seat while Marcus glances over at him with looks of increasing concern. Tomas feels nothing.

It takes them three hours to drive far enough away to feel safe. They stop at the cheapest motel they can find, one where the clerk asks no questions and they pay in cash up front, and before the door has even fully closed behind them Tomas has Marcus against a wall. _“Kiss me in public,”_ he snarls desperately against Marcus’ neck, almost shaking with fury and frustration. _“Why won’t you kiss me in public?”_

“How can you f-fucking ask me that,” Marcus gasps, stumbling over his words as Tomas sucks a kiss against the skin of his throat.

“Because I love you,” Tomas says fiercely, pressing Marcus between his chest and the wall. “I love you and I want to _fuck you_ and I don’t care how many bones I have to break to get that point across.”

“You know what’ll happen, Tomas.”

“I don’t care if I get hurt,” says Tomas, which he has said with his every action and is finally saying out loud, “and I won’t let you get hurt.”

Marcus’ arms come up around him and grip him like a vice, like wings enfolding around them to shield them from the sunlight. Tomas can hear Marcus’ breathing, heavy and harsh and emotional, and he pushes his forehead up against Marcus’ and doesn’t try to make him talk.

They don’t sleep at all that night.


	26. Best Friends: Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [angst, hurt / comfort but mostly hurt]

“Father Marcus?”

 _Father._ The words sounds obscene on his tongue. An absurdity, like calling his mother _ma’am,_ or Oliva, _Miss Ortega._

“What do you want?”

Marcus doesn’t look at him when he says it. His back is turned to Tomas, framed dark against the sunlight streaming through the window. In Tomas’ dream, he had looked like a ruin. Now he looks like not even that; like a dusty, ashen place where the plants no longer grow. His hair is still shorn short, and his shoulders still carry the lazy slump Tomas remembers from their childhood.

Tomas wonders how he could ever begin to answer. _I want you to tell me what happened to you,_ comes to mind. _I want you to be seven again. I want you to point at bubblegum on a bench and tell me you’ll eat it for a dollar._

He wonders how to introduce himself. _Tomas. Father Tomas. Mr. Ortega._

“My name is Tomas Ortega,” he says finally. He sees Marcus stiffen as if struck. “Father Tomas, from St. Anthony’s… It’s in Chicago.”

Marcus looks over his shoulder at him, and Tomas feels his world crack in half.

“You’re a priest?” Marcus says weakly, in a voice so small and defeated that he almost sounds like a child again.

Tomas nods mutely, stunned into silence by his blue eyes, his scarred face.

“They got you too?” Marcus says then. His voice is shaking.

“No, no one got me,” Tomas says finally, unsure of what Marcus means. He shifts a little on the balls of his feet, wanting to come closer but unsure if it would be welcome. “I wanted to be one.”

“You… wanted to be one,” Marcus says. He’s looking Tomas up and down, taking him in. He comes a little closer, and puts his hand on Tomas’ shoulder, as though trying to see if he’s real.

The weight of his hand is firm and familiar, and for the briefest of moments it feels as though nothing’s changed. Then everything changes, like a sudden flip of a coin, and Marcus is in Tomas’ arms, and Tomas realizes that he’s spilled forward to hug him without thought or hinderance, this stranger who might once have been his hero when he was five.

Marcus is tense and cold in his arms, like a marble sculpture, but Tomas doesn’t want to pull away. He lets out a weary laugh, familiar and welcome in Tomas’ ear. “You used to be fat,” he says.

“You used to have hair,” says Tomas, and that makes Marcus pull away, laughing uncomfortably. He rests his hands on Tomas’ shoulders, and doesn’t move them.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. I don’t take care of myself much.”

Marcus looks like an older man. Much older than Tomas knows him to be. Tomas shakes his head, tries to remember why he came.

“There’s a girl in my parish…” he says, but his voice trails off. “Where did you go?”

Marcus says nothing. His eyes linger on the ground.

“You missed our whole summer,” Tomas says gently.

Marcus closes his eyes. He leans forward and presses his forehead against Tomas’ shoulder, hard and heavy, like a fallen tree leaning against him. His breath starts coming faster, then it hitches, and a small, strangled sob escapes him.

Tomas holds him close, cups his hand over the back of Marcus’ neck. He can feel the rough skin there, pink and hairless with burn marks. He rubs his hand up and down Marcus’ back, and lets him cry.

 _What happened to you,_ Tomas thinks, and closes his eyes. _What happened… what happened… what happened…_


End file.
